Lecture Series on Natural Farming
On 18 November 2020, the Agriculture Vertical organized a lecture by Dr Bruno Dorin—Senior Researcher and Head, Economics and Development, Centre De Sciences Humaines—on ‘Sustainable Agroecological Systems’. The lecture was attended by 71 participants—including NITI Aayog Member (Agriculture) Prof. Ramesh Chand and Additional Secretary Dr Rakesh Sarwal; State Agriculture Secretaries; Deputy Director Generals, ICAR; and representatives of FAO; Scientists from State Agriculture Universities; and Krishi Vigyan Kendra officials involved in the scaling-up of Natural Farming.
Dr Dorin discussed a new paradigm for Indian agriculture: to convert small-scale farming into comparative advantage. Land and farm labour productivities can be increased not through few large mono productions (such as that of rice, wheat, sugarcane, and others) with costly industrial inputs (such as through seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, fossil energies, and others), but through context-specific agro-ecosystems boosting biological synergies, below and above the ground, amongst numerous plant and animal species.Download