siliconindia | | August 20209BIO-AGRICULTURE (BIOAG) IN INDIAinputs are often used with the broad aim of bringing-down the usage of traditional chemical fertilizers and agro-chem-icals, but they may at the same time also form the back-bone of organic farming systems.The term `Bio-fertilizer' refers to a formulation con-taining live microbes which helps in enhancing the soil fertility, either by fixing atmospheric nitrogen, solubiliza-tion of phosphorus, decomposing organic wastes or by aug-menting plant growth by producing growth hormones with their biological activities.MECHANISMS OF GROWTH PRO-MOTION/BIO-CONTROL· Phytohormones· Solubilizing of P· Nitrogen fixation· Antagonistic effects· Direct competition for `rhizosphere space'Bio-insecticides are organic formulations recommended for the management of insects that feed on crops. They are different from chemical pesticides in several ways. They contain live bacteria that produce toxins which cause stomach poison in the insects and kill them. Such as Beauveria spp., Trich-oderma spp., and Bacillus spp.Under Crop protection measures, biological control agents can also be defined as the utilization of natural en-emies to reduce the damage caused by noxious organisms to tolerable levels. Natural enemies of insect pests, also known as biological control agents, include predators, par-asitoids, and pathogens. Biological control agents of plant diseases are most often referred to as antagonists such as Trichogramma and Nucleopolyhedrovirus (NPV).Factors contributed to the emergence of a market for Ag-Biological inputs:· Higher demand for agriculture produce from ever growing population.· An increase in the price of chemical insecticides and the resistance developed by insects/pests to existing crop protection inputs.· Need to reduce residues of toxic chemicals in food stuffs, especially those for export markets · Regulatory and consumer driven focus on sustainable agriculture.· Promising trend of increase in the sales of organic food as consumers becoming more health conscious. · Concern over their food habits coupled with higher buying power leading to increase in non-chemical crop protection and total crop care product usage.Ag-biological inputs marketing challenges: · Market is currently polluted by too many spurious products/psuedo-biologicals (non-registered, unau-thorized and non-effective).· Bio-fertilizers are live microorganisms which at times die in case of high temperature· The short shelf life of bio-fertilizer is limited to 6-12 months in a liquid/powder form.· Bio-fertilizers are used before sowing and at times if delay caused in dispatches from manufacturer, it leads to inventory carry-over and expiry of the prod-uct at distribution channel level.· Some of the bio-fertilizers are crop spe-cific as well as location specific.· Soil characteristics like high nitrate, low organic matter, less available phos-phate, high soil acidity or alkalinity, high temperature as well as presence of high agro-chemicals or low micro-nutrients con-tribute to failure of inoculants or adversely affect its efficacy.· The change in cropping pattern by farm-ers also adversely affects the sales.· Slow in action compared to synthetics/agro chemicals.Way forward to improve usage of Ag-biological inputs:· Products need be made available as per local market needs and should have potential to perform under dif-ferent agro-climatic field conditions.· Product should be easily adopted/can be integrated in existing farmer practices. Product must be envi-ronmentally more stable and must be compatible and can be easily integrated with chemical fertilizer/pes-ticides.· Reach more number of farmers and create the product demand and trust by conducting regular field activi-ties (product demos, crop show/field days, organized farmer meets) for creating mass awareness.· Encourage distribution channel partners to enhance awareness of Ag-biological by offering them decent product promotion incentive structure.Bio-Agriculture is for sure expected to create a prom-inence. IPM (Integrated Pest Management) & INM (Inte-grated Nutrition Management) will have an important role to play, and the use of biological control agents/bio-nu-trition inputs is going to increase significantly in coming times. IPM is a big part of the solution. Increasing it for long-term, sustainable agriculture that achieves adequate, safe and quality food production improves farmer liveli-hoods and conserves non-renewable energy. Dhananjay Edakhe
< Page 8 | Page 10 >