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In search of sustainability

Nazrul Islam
Synthetic fertiliser is the lone source of Replenishment of the soil. But, in reality, synthetic fertilisers never replenish the soil, they pollute it. Even then, our lands have been producing crops as we are blessed with heavy rains and floods that keep most of the crop fields across the country submerged for a sizeable period of the year.
IT is indeed good news!
Agriculture will get more allocation in the next budget But can mere increased allocation meet the current and future challenges in this sector?
Agriculture has been facing multi-faceted problems. There is no reason for co'mplacency because of good harvests in the ongoing boro season. Agriculture is not a fair for one season. It’s a culture; lifelong and unending culture. There might be a shortcut method for achieving immediate success, but that’s not all. We must evolve long-term, i.e. sustainable, ways that will meet the challenges of the future.
Regrettably, our agriculture is heavily dependent on outside inputs. The inputs are costly and non-renewable. Their reserves are being exhausted fast and prices are increasing faster.
Nearly 50 percent of our precious natural gas and 20 percent of imported fuel are currently being used for agricultural purposes (for producing urea and electricity). How long will the country be able to supply this fast-depleting natu- ral gas for agriculture? The available gas reserve data suggest i- not for long.
Then what will we do? Making urea fertiliser through imported gas, or importing it from outside and supplying it to the farmers at affordable price would be a nightmarish task.
Being a student of agriculture and a member of a peasant family, I have been witnessing for three decades how our agricultural practices have shifted from sustainable to non-sustainable direction. Since the mid '60s, we have been concentrating all our attention on so-called modernisation of our agriculture.
Our research, motivation and extension . — all are directed towards "modernisation." And what is that modernisation? Applying more synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, using more water, using more mechanical appliances and using more laboratory-made seeds.
Farming can be compared to feeding newborn babies with formula feed instead of breastfeeding, and that of having lunch or dinner with junk food rather than homemade meals. As our burgeoning middle class is leaning towards artificial formula food and junk food, our farmers are also being induced to use readymade fertilisers and pesticides. Today’s farmers have become so lazy that they are reluctant to even prepare their lands with bullock-driven ploughs. However, rearing of cows and bullocks has also become a rare scene in many peasant families in the villages.
Many farmers told me that they couldn't recall when they last applied cow-dung or compost in their lands. If you visit the countryside, you will hardly find any haystack or heaps of cow dung or compost adjacent to the courtyards, which was a common scene a decade or two back. The farmers used to preserve the cow dung carefully, and make compost with homestead waste, and sometimes with water hyacinths when they were available.
The "modern" farmers don't want to endure the "hazards" of rearing cows, goats or even poultry birds. A middle class farmer would have at least half a dozen cattle heads, a dozen goats, a flock of poultry birds (both hens and ducks) and a few pairs of pigeons -- that was common in the past. The sizes of the straw heaps and the cattle shed of a farmer used to be a measure of the affluence of a village farmer. But gone are those
Domestic animals have disappeared from the courtyards of the farmers. They require special care and attention. Today's farmers and their family members don't want to spend much of their time and attention for that purpose.
Moreover, shrinking of grazing space, scarcity of cattle feed, and susceptibility to diseases also discourage the farmers from rearing domestic animals.
■So, synthetic fertiliser is the lone source of replenishment of the soil. But, in reality, synthetic fertilisers never replenish the soil, they pollute it. Even then, our lands have been producing crops as we arc blessed with heavy rains and floods that keep most of the crop fields across the country submerged for a sizeable period of the year.
Then, is there no light ahead of us for sustainability in the sector? Have all the means been plugged off? Possibly not. Rather, there is a great prospect for durable agriculture in our country.
The illiterate or half-literate farmers of our country time and again show us the light. We have already been introduced to hari dhan (hari paddy). A farmer of Narikelbaria in Jhenidah district, Haricharan Das, has evolved the high-yielding variety of indigenous paddy through selection process. The paddy has been spread in the locality.
Many of us might not know that farmers of Pairabandh area (birth place of Begum Rokeya) of Mithapukur Upazila in Rangpur hardly use any chemical fertilisers or pesticide in their lands. I personally visited the area and came to know that each peasant family produces compost out of household waste, crop residue, water hyacinths and other perishable items.
At first, a few families of the area initiated the process, and now farmers of a large area have adopted it. By doing this, they are not only saving money but also producing poison-free healthy food items.
An almost similar initiative has been undertaken by a sizeable number of farmers of Kaunia Upazila in the same district. They are producing vermi-compost and applying those in their crop fields instead of chemical fertilisers. Vermi-compost is a product from earthworms.
Those who have minimum knowledge about agriculture know that earthworms eructate granular soil-like substance which is highly nutritious for crops. This substance contains high quantities of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK). A large number of farmers of Kaunia area are now producing vermi-compost by cultivating earthworm at their homes.
So, all paths have not been blocked. The problem is the mindset of our policy-makers, scientists .and expert^, They are following the practices of western countries, where agriculture is not the priority area.
They don't have to cultivate three/four crops on the same piece of land in a year. We have to understand our own socioeconomic conditions. Replicating the western model might work for some time, but definitely will not work in the long run. Our scientists will have to evolve our own ways of blending the indigenous and the acquired knowledge.
Our scientists can get a clue from Haricharan Das on how to nurture indigenous resources. The policymakers can replicate the examples of Pairabandh and Kaunia's farmers in other places of the country.
I would like to suggest to the concerned authorities to allot 50 percent of the allocation for agriresearch in sustainable agriculture. Before that, a plan would have to be made for agricultural research centres and educational institutions for carrying out innovative research and learning.
Nazrul Islam is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.