UNB, Dhaka :
Amid the growing concern about the overuse of chemicals in agriculture, agronomists have underlined the need for introducing eco-farming in the country to help maintain the ecosystem and ensure safe food.
They said, the country has achieved a marked progress in food production through the rampant use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers harming the environment.
“As chemical use in agriculture destroys soil organisms, we must use organic matters for crop production and apply indigenous knowledge and integrated pest management (IPM) system to control pests,” Prof Dr Abdul Karim, dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University in Gazipur, told UNB.
He suggested innovating nutrient efficient varieties of crops to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers in farming.
Ecological farming is recognised as the high-end objective among the proponents of sustainable agriculture. Eco-farming is not the same as the organic one, but there are many similarities, and they are not necessarily incompatible.
Nazim Uddin, a farmer of Gobaria village in Kuliarchar upazila of Kishoreganj, has adopted eco-farming and is cultivating aman paddy on a piece of land on the bank of a tributary of the Brahmaputra River using surface water.
The farmer has dug a pond inside the land to produce fish and farm vegetables and fruit plants like papaya and banana on the pond’s embankments. He has also installed a ‘compost fertiliser plant’ there to prepare organic fertiliser from wastes.
“Being informed about the adverse impacts of agro-chemical, I’ve started eco-farming. I’ve two children …how could I protect them from chemical-treated food items, as it’s very difficult to find safe food items and vegetables in the market,” Nazim Uddin told UNB.
Nazim said he initially started eco-farming to meet his family demand, but he is now thinking of producing it commercially as he has seen good output applying this method.
“Rice is coming from my cropland while fish from the pond, and vegetables and fruits from the embankments of the pond. Now there’s no crisis of safe food,” said a beaming Nazim.
Eco-farming includes all methods, which regenerate ecosystem services like prevention of soil erosion, water infiltration and retention, carbon sequestration in the form of humus and increased biodiversity, according to experts.
They said, the rice yield via ‘rice-duck-farming’ would be another good example of eco-farming, where ducks are raised on paddies and feed on pests and weed. This means that farmers do not have to use earth and water-ravaging chemical pesticides or herbicides.
