Organic farming is one of the few practices that prove the advance of human consciousness in terms of environment-friendly agriculture, while actually getting back in time for learning. While the term ‘organic’ was first applied in 1940 to communities that practiced this method of farming, its history dates back to antiquity. Today, our concept of organic farming is that of the same natural, green system of farming – one that is free of synthetic products and regulators – which was (and still is) practiced in ancient agricultural societies, notably in the rural societies of India and China. While those farming ancestors of ours had no knowledge of the environmental hazards of man-made products and other anthropogenic threats to the environment, their simple wisdom (if we may call it so) had taken the right path to health-and-eco-friendly practices of agriculture. In this particular instance, at least, we may concede that ignorance is bliss.

Relinquishing (or limiting) the use of harmful fertilizers, pesticides, and other potentially toxic chemical products, used in modern farming, is only part of eco-friendly agriculture based on organic farming. Ideally, an organic farm community would not use genetically engineered (or ‘modified’) organisms for making greater profit in less time. Somehow, while survival and contentment had not parted hands on the scene of conventional farming, natural quality had been accepted as the best possible when all things were considered. Today, establishing more organic farm communities is a cry for the return of green rural farming whereby natural manure and compost fill the need for producing quality food. In case of breeding animals like cattle and horses, the general rule followed by organic farm communities is the centuries-old ‘Leave it to Nature.’

While organic farming imitates natural farming methods quite closely, it is not definitively synonymous with natural farming as practiced in traditional rural societies. Organic farm communities do use some processed fertilizers and mineral preparations in order to maximize soil conservation and the quality and health of soil. Cultivation by mechanical means and crop rotation are a few other techniques that do not violate the fundamentals of organic farming and are thus frequently employed in organic farm communities. To control pest, organic farming looks to non-toxic means like selective cultivation of crops (choosing pest-resistant varieties), crop rotation, row covers, and traps etc. Similarly, mechanical weeding is adopted, much like the ancient traditional farming, along with thermal control on weeds and mulching.

On the whole, organic farming cannot be claimed to have emulated conventional rural agriculture, especially when speaking with refernec to productivity and cost-effectiveness. But organic farm communities certainly come closer to the ideal form of modern farming than the more invasive sort of agricultural practices, involving anti-environmental agents and genetically engineered organisms. The quality of health in organic farm communities is also lagging behind that visualized in the ideal picture of green living. Some organic farmers, for example, still use pesticides and the associated health risks are getting more attention from concerned authorities. It is expected that the growing care for eco-and-health friendly living will soon accelerate national and international efforts toward establishing our utopian green communities.

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