Breaking New Ground
Posted in Experiments on 25. Oct, 2010
A group of women, who visited Chetna Vikas in Wardha have been inspired to conduct an experiment in organic and chemical-free farming.
The plot in October 2010
Gita, Vandana and Shilan identified a plot of land where nothing has been grown in more than 15 years, so that we could be sure it was “organic”. The land abutts other agricultural land that has been fallow for several years.
This esperiment has two key aims:
- to demonstrate that it is possible to grow vegetables without the assistance of any chemical inputs
- to show that organic farming can also be profitable
The size of the land is about 2,000sq.mts and it falls under the category of Morod Land (i.e. upland areas). There is a dug-out well in one far corner of the property, but we ahve no electricity connection to install an electric pump. The traditional method os watering, using a laat, is installed but the farmers felt that this would make for very hard work, and therefore a kerosene+petrol pump would be useful.
We got the soil tested and we found the land is neutral, with high levels of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. We are still to receive the results for micro-nutrients.
