The urgency to produce more has caused great environmental degradation for soil and water in the agriculture sector. Use exuberant chemical fertilizers after the green revolution has increased production temporarily but in the long run had put a lot of pressure on the soil management.

The rush to increase agriculture production has neglected the very basics of the environmental ecosystem.

India is known as the “Krishi Pradhan Desh” (Agrarian Based Country) where the majority of the population depends on agriculture. After Green Revolution, India has promoted the use of limited Hybrid Seed, Fertilizers, and Pesticides for increasing agriculture production, develop irrigation facilities or resources to convert rain-fed land into irrigated agriculture land and promote and increase the use of mechanization in Agriculture Sector.

However, after more than five decades, the green revolution has shown its negative impact at the grass-root where unlimited and high use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides used to increase production has decreased the indigenous agriculture practices, high inputs, and low income and increased mono-cropping pattern.  

According to one of the scientific findings, it is confirmed that the forms of nitrogen provided by chemical fertilizers are readily transformed in the soil, resulting in the emission of nitrous oxides into the atmosphere. The findings also confirm that nitrous oxide is 300 times more damaging than CO2 in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, leading to increased food production cost, reducing human immunity, increase in numerous diseases, leading to loss of human lives, it has further negative impacts on the animal as well as on biodiversity.  

To mitigate the degrading agriculture scenario, a training programme was organized by Caritas India to educate the participants on localized integrated nutrient and pest management from 7 – 9 January 2020 at Gujarat. Mr. Mukund Deshmukh and Nirmal Minj from Caritas India facilitated the training of 31 participants from Ahmedabad, Baroda, Gandhinagar, and Rajkot from Gujarat. Diocesan Director of Baroda, Sanjivani project staff, nutrition committee members and progressive farmers from the operational areas of the programme actively participated in the training to learn about the Integrated Pest and Nutrient Management. The training programme was held at DSSS-Baroda, Khedut Vikas Mandal, Jagruti Animation Centre-Netrang, Block-Dediapada, District- Narmada

The training programme focused on reducing the chemical inputs and promoting organic inputs to maintain and enhance the soil health for better production. The training participants along with project participants exercised the process to prepare various components and its usages under the integrated localized (organic) nutrient management such as- Jeevamrut, Beejamrut, Vermi Wash, Fish Amino Acid, Effective Micro Organism, cytosine, and integrated localized (organic) pest management- NPK,10 Parni (leaves), Lamit, Neem ark and also other forms of preventive measures such as -Bird trap, trap crops, yellow board, use light (bulbs)  

One of the participants of the training expressed that “all these ingredients used to prepare organic fertilizer and pest control are from our village, we did know how to make it but from now onwards we will prepare our local solutions.