1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
Environment and Economic Dimensions of Organic Rice
Cultivation in South India1
S Rajendran
Reader in Economics, DOS in Economics and Cooperation
University of Mysore, Manasagangothri
Mysore 570 006, India
I. Introduction:
Indian agriculture poised a faster growth during the post green revolution era
between sixties and late eighties and later, there is a sign of either stagnation or
decline of productivity in many parts of the country. Expansion of assured irrigated
area through major irrigation systems, strong research and development base, large
network of extension services and quantum jump in inputs subsidies all have
contributed to increase in food especially cereal production in selected pockets.
Fine cereals like rice and wheat have been at the command all through the green
revolution phases especially on the food baskets of India. The spread of green
revolution packages in other potential areas at later stages has resulted in
cultivation of cereals like rice. Since rice is a tropical but water guzzling crop, it
has been taken up for cultivation on the command areas across the country.
Traditionally in India, rice has been grown as subsistence crop till the green
revolution techniques were initiated to increase the production and productivity.
Farm produced and homegrown inputs were largely used with less energy intensity
for domestic consumption and later the intensity of land has been increased to raise
the production and productivity to feed the growing population. To achieve this,
huge investment was made on major irrigation projects; new high yielding crop
varieties were developed; input delivery systems were strengthened and factory
made subsidized external inputs were introduced. All these were possible as the
state was keen in developing agriculture sector mainly cereals to avoid starvation.
Expectedly, the results were positive from the potential areas where resources were
abundant and it continued till late eighties and later cereal productivity especially
rice was found to either stagnated or declined marginally (GOK, 1994 and Singh,
1997). It is postulated that the liberalization programs that were initiated during
early nineties would aggravate the situation further as the state’s role in the form of
public investment will be minimized to a great length. The available data clearly
indicate that from 1990-91 the share of public investment in Indian agriculture has
been declined from 29 per cent to less than 20 per cent (GOI, 2001) in 1999-2000.
1
Paper presented at the 1st RDA/ ARNOA International Conference on Asian Organic Agriculture
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation, held at Suwon and Chenonan/ Korea
12-15 November 2002.
1
1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
In this scenario, it is perceived that the cost of cultivation is shooting up and the
farmers are finding that agriculture is no more viable proposition and in fact a large
number of farmers committed suicides in a south Indian state of Karnataka
(Deshpande, 2002). Perhaps shooting up of price of factory made external inputs
and the government slow withdrawal of investment as well as market intervention
and more significantly, shifting of subsistence farming (mainly with homegrown
inputs) to commercial farming (largely with purchased inputs) would have also
contributed for the present crisis. In other words, the local indigenous farm
techniques have been wiped out and replaced by the modern techniques that would
have resulted unviable and unsustainable farm enterprise.
Rice as a major cereal crop, grown across the country is also facing the same
problem and challenge like any other crop and over 90 per cent is produced and
consumed in the Asian continent. Countries like China, India, Philippines, Korea
and Pakistan grow a lion’s share of global rice production. Though the rice yield
levels differ across these countries, suitable agro-environmental conditions favor
the farmers to grow this crop. Rice is predominantly grown in the states of Punjab,
Haryana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in India. Nevertheless,
rice cultivation becomes less remunerative, environmentally unsustainable, and
hence alternative crops have been propagated and this option will be less
subscribed as a large chunk of Asian population’s staple food is rice. It is in this
context that alternative farm techniques and strategies for growing rice ought to be
found in the larger interest. Owing to the merits of organic cultivation as compared
to modern practice, such principle is attracted across the world. Much state
supported agencies; NGOs and individuals started experiments on organic methods
of production in the recent past. Many European countries provide financial
assistance to farmers for organic cultivation in the context of health and
environmental implications of conventional farming systems. The recently held
14th Organic World Congress in Canada emphasized the need for promoting
ecologically sustainable, economically viable and socially adaptable farming
system. In fact there is a growing demand worldwide, especially in the European
region for organically grown food products as could be observed from the table – 1.
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
Table: 1 – Organic Food Market – A Glance in 2000
Markets
Retail sales
Total food sales Expected growth
(in billion US$) (in per cent)
(in per cent)
Germany
2.2-2.4
1.25-1.5
10-15
United Kingdom
1.0-1.05
1.0
25-30
Italy
1.0-1.05
1.0
15-20
France
0.75-0.80
1.0
15-20
Switzerland
0.42-0.45
2.0-2.5
15-20
Denmark
0.35-0.37
2.5-3.0
10-15
Austria
0.25-0.30
2.0
10-15
Netherlands
0.22-0.27
0.75-0.10
10-20
Sweden
0.12-0.15
1.0
20-25
Other European countries
0.30-0.40
NA
NA
Europe total
7.0
United States
8.0
1.5
15-20
Japan
2.50
NA
NA
Total
17.50
Note: Official trade data are not available. Compilations are based on rough
estimates. The figures for Japan include ‘green products’.
Source: DTE, 2001, p35.
The increase in demand for organic products is mainly due to health implications
and scare triggered by bovine encephalopathy (BSE) in livestock, dioxin in animal
feed and genetically modified products. Thus scared public in the Europe and
America ready to pay premium for organically grown products mainly come from
developing countries and even within the developing countries, urban rich
consumers prefer to consume organically grown products. This clearly reveals the
fact that market is growing at faster pace for organic commodities in the globe and
higher premium is mainly due to cost escalation in the organic farming systems
(Hazell, 2001).
II. Challenges:
According to researchers, different farming systems do have implications on the
productivity, sustainability, production orientation and ecological situations (see
Werf and Narayan, 1989 and Pingali, Hossain and Gerpacio, 1997). While modern
commercial (conventional) farming system is unsustainable and market oriented
the organic (sustainable) farming do have merits like productivity orientation,
ecological sustainability and farm complexity (Table – 2).
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
Table: 2 – Postulates of Different Farming Systems
System variables
Conventional farming Organic farming
Productivity
High
High
Sustainability
Low
High
Farm complexity
Simple
Complex
Environment diversity
Uniform
Diverse
Production orientation
Market
Subsistence and
External inputs
or Market
i)Seeds
HYVs
Improved local
ii)Agro-chemicals
High
None
Source: Werf and Narayan, 1989.
Traditional farming
Low
Moderate
Complex
Diverse
Subsistence
Local
Low
Traditional rice cultivation involves mainly direct sowing, interculture, weeding,
rainfed irrigation and harvest. In such system, rice plants withstood extreme
drought, provided more fodder and yield was moderate for subsistence. Research
study in the Philippines indicated that in rainfed low land farms dry seeding of rice
in dry plowed plots was the promising technology for improving rice productivity
(IRRI, 1992). Subsequently, the introduction of semi and dwarf varieties of high
yielding varieties of rice, resulted in prone and succeptable to pests and diseases,
required more water, demanded more factory made external inputs (especially
agro-chemicals) and yielded less fodder. The propensity to use abundant water and
more chemicals increased year after year. In some pockets of rice regions in India,
indiscriminate and non-judicial use of chemicals was observed that has also led to
health hazards on the labor (Mencher, 1994). Nonetheless, such varieties yielded
more which was essential to feed the growing population. Simultaneously, adverse
ecological impacts like water logging, salinity and chemical contamination were
reported (Pingali, 2001 and Rajendran, 2002). In addition to this, comprehensive
studies on organic especially rice cultivation are scanty in India. Thus the relevance
of organic agriculture and research has been realized all over the world.
III. Data Source:
With this backdrop the present paper intends to examine the environment and
economic dimensions of rice cultivation from six farms in four south Indian states
– Karnataka (2), Kerala (1), Pondicherry (1) and Tamil Nadu (2). The selected
organic farms were visited to get the details on environment and economics aspects
of rice cultivation. Basically, rice is grown on the farms for domestic consumption
and some farmers gave a portion of rice products to their friends and relatives and
however, other crops like fruits and vegetables were grown for both domestic and
marketing. The resource endowments were highly diversified and found more
among organic growers. Such farmers maintained a good number of livestock (for
dung, milk and draught power), agro-forestry (for green manure) and adapted
mixed crops including horticulture for sustainable income. These enabled the
organic growers to avail and use the home grown resources as inputs in growing
crops including rice and it was cost effective.
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
The rice growers collected 2 seeds from their fields, dried, processed and stored
them in eco-friendly containers like bamboo bins, wooden grainage and paddy
straw bin. Inside the containers, some farmers kept leaves from tulsi, lotus, neem
and notchi plants, others put dry chilies to check pests like whit moth, which was
found as common infested on the seed. While a couple of farmers preferred to sow
the seeds, some went in for raising nurseries and thus seedlings grown on the seed
beds were collected carefully for transplantation. It was observed that local crop
varieties were preferred for cultivation, though such varieties extinct from such
localities and the organic growers stored some seeds as treasure of troves. For
raising seedlings, green leaves like pongamia and neem (sometimes paddy husk)
were applied as compost, which enabled the soil to be porus and this prevented
wastage of seedlings and increased shooting capacity of clumps. Row method of
transplanting paddy was practiced, which helped the farmers to remove the weeds,
control rats and sufficient aeration was found and all these resulted in increasing
the yield levels significantly.
IV. Ecological Implications:
Application of bad odor, cattle urine mixed with neem and adathudai (botanical)
decoction kept at bays the pests and diseases in the rice fields. A couple of organic
rice growers confessed that application of neem oil cake along with organic manure
as basal fertility agent prevented insect pests and diseases3 attack; enhanced plant
growth and increased yields. Due to non-availability of sufficient organic manure, a
few farmers purchased municipal waste and applied the same after due processing4.
While for transplanted fields, water was applied on alternate days, directly sown
(broadcaste) fields; this was done weekly twice. It is to be remembered that while
water scarcity is noted everywhere across the globe, to produce one kilo of rice the
farmers in general reported to use an alarming quantum of about 15000 liters
(Rajendran, 1992) under flood irrigation system for rice transplanted fields. Such
huge water use resulted not only in excessive weed growth but also salination and
water logging erupted in the long run. In fact, interculture 5 was done with an
intention to split root system (for more shoots and clumps) of the rice plants and to
reduce the weed growth and instead only the former was realized, weed growth was
found to be more. This had resulted
in using more human labor for weeding
operation and the wage for transplantation offset this cost as revealed by the
2
Unlike in modern rice varieties, grains can be easily threshed from the traditional crop plants.
Mechanical thresher or beating the plants on hard stone under modern HYV, germination quality is
affected to a great extent.
3
Common pests in rice are blue leaf beetle (Leptispa pygmaea Baly) and Rice grasshopper
(Hieroglyphus banian) and diseases are blast (Piricularia oryzae) and Leaf Yellowing (Tungro).
4
In fact there was growing demand for municipal compost in the predominantly rice grown regions
and farmers spent substantial amount as wage for separate out solid wastes like plastics, glass pieces
and iron materials.
5
Well after 20 days of sowing paddy seeds, interculture with either bamboo splits or wooden plow
was done for increasing plant shootings. Farmers reported that such plots shown greater intensity of
drought resistant and yield was comparable with transplanted fields.
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
organic rice growers. Moreover, under direct sowing, other crops like ragi and
jowar were grown as mixed/inter crops on the uplands that maintained providing
supplementary income. Besides, black gram, white gram, pigeon pea and cow pea
were raised on the field bunds both on rice seedlings transplanted and direct sown
fields and often, this kept the pest and disease well under control and also served as
habitation for natural predators like spiders.
Other inputs like application of earthworm castings and algae especially on the
irrigated plots were also noted among the selected organic rice growers.
Earthworms proliferate by themselves in the absence of chemicals in the soil
whereas algae grew naturally, if the environment is congenial. Unfortunately, it
was revealed that realizing the fast growing market (demand) for earthworm
castings, the fake businessmen entered the field and exploited the farmers. Also in
some places in the state of Maharasthra and Karnataka, it was reported that fertile
black soil was adultrated with earthworm castings for quick and easy money and
farmers were duped. This warrants immediate attention of the policy makers to
streame line the market mechanism like licencing and standardization. Scientific
studies from the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, clearly
demonstrated that earthworm castings contain five times more nitrogen, seven
times more phosphate and 11 times more of potash than the given top soil. Fragoso
and Lavelle (1995) found that litter decomposition by earthworms’ help improved
the soil nutrients and organic matter. Rigorous scientific screening and
standardization is lacking in this crucial aspect. For instance, in India there are
more than 200 varieties of worms and so far only three varieties like Eudrilus
eugeniae and Perionyx excavatus for tropical conditions and Eisenia fiteda for
temperate conditions have been found suitable than others. Unless proper screening
and labeling is done, it would resort to black marketing. With regard to
earthworms, fields should not be plowed more deeply and intensively instead light
plowing or rotating top soil with spade created a favorable atmosphere to faster
proliferation. Absence of chemical particles (synthetic fertilizers and pesticides)
helped the worms to multiply themselves in the soil thereby the excreta of worms
enriches soil fertility, plant growth, grain weight and yields levels.
Similarly, there is a growing demand for bio fertilizers like algae especially among
the rice growers. Commonly used bio fertilizers to fix/solubilize atmospheric and
naturally occurring plant nutrients are blue green algae (bga), Azolla, Rhizobium,
Azospirillum and Azotobater. Such algae are found not only cheaper but also easy
to grow by the farmers in their fields with little technical expertise. There is a
growing awareness on this not only among organic rice producers and from other
farmers as well in states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, where the ecological and
economical merits of bio fertilizers have been highlighted on the vantage points by
the state machineries. Despite these, it was found that only 10 per cent of total
demand of bio fertilizers was met by the state departments and there is a potential
for private sector to exploit the business on a large scale as it is economical,
technically feasible and ecologically sustainable. Perhaps the financial institutions
may come forward to start this as agri-business in rural areas and already a couple
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
of large fertilizer companies ventured in this prosperous area for production and
marketing. Standardization of production and marketing of bio fertilizers need to
be done at micro level with the active help of agricultural scientists and revenue
officials.
As per the available information five promising microorganisms like Nostoc sp,
Aulosira sp, Anabaena sp, Oscillatoria sp and Westiellopsis sp, were identified as
efficient nitrogen fixing agents under All India Coordinated research project on bio
fertilizers. This has to be viewed in the interest of long term ecological benefits as
continuos application of algae for three years farmers need not use synthetic
fertilizers because micro organisms will get well established in the soil and be able
to generate nutrients, required by rice crop. Despite these, scientific research
studies conducted at Tamil Nadu’s Rice Research Institute at Aduthrai, revealed
that rice productivity was 20 per cent higher when treated with bga, Azospirillum
and chemical fertilizers than when treated with bga and Azospirillum only or
synthetic fertilizers alone6. Organic rice growers on the other argued that continuos
application of eco-friendly bio fertilizers enabled the farmers to get more yields.
The organic rice growers grew leguminous crops like kozunji and sanabhu during
off farm summer season on the fields. Similarly, some farmers penned sheep flock
at nights for manure and they reported that sheep urine and manure enriched the
soil fertility. This had helped to increase the soil fertility and in turn yield levels.
Another notable observation is that fodder availability from dwarf and semi dwarf
rice varieties was less as compared with traditional ones. But as of now even the
organic rice growers do not possess traditional seed varieties of any crop and high
yielding crops completely occupied the prime position especially on the assured
irrigated regions. Local crop varieties were used only in remote dry land regions. In
the selected organic farms, rice varieties developed from the International Rice
Research Institute in the Philippines have been crossed with local varieties by the
state run agricultural universities and the Indian Council of Agriculture Research
stations and only such varieties were grown on the irrigated fields. Thus low
availability of fodder from modern high yielding varieties, resorted in fodder
shortage for livestock sector and hence purchased feed items were fed to domestic
animals.
V. Economic Aspects:
As it was observed, organic rice growers relied, more on homegrown items like
crop residues, compost and green manure, which brought down cash component of
expenditure for inputs. Only a major item that incurred more input cost was farm
power sources like human labor, draught animals and machineries. Obviously, rice
requires more farm power for operations like plowing, leveling, transplanting,
6
During a personal interview with agriculture scientist, M S Swaminathan in December 1993, he
ascertained as “Bio fertilizers are not alternative to chemical fertilizers. But they can enhance the
availability of plant nutrients from the soil”. P22 (Rajendran, 1993).
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
irrigation, weeding, harvesting and threshing. Of course, between successive
operations, rice growers get adequate leisure.
A cross section of the organic rice growers reported that rice is fairly remunerative
crop as compared with other cereals like ragi, jowar and bajra. On an average rice
yields were reported around five tones for one hectare of land for transplanted
system and little less than under direct sowing system. Since manual weeding was
done and home-grown inputs were applied the input costs were considerably
reduced. Perhaps, yield levels under conventional type of farming would have been
more but the yield per rupee invested could have been more under organic farming.
On an average Rs 20000 was generated as net income from growing rice from one
hectare of land and farmers reaped twice as income over investment as could be
found from Table –3. Nevertheless, economics of production for different crops
shows that horticulture crops were more remunerative as compared with cereals
including rice under organic agriculture.
Table: 3 – Costs and Returns of Selected Organically Grown Crops (RS/ha)
Crops
Gross Cost Gross Returns Net Returns Net Returns over
Cost (per rupee)
Coconut
14000
140000
126000
9.0
Sapota
16000
87000
72000
4.5
Turmeric
7800
30000
22200
2.9
Grapes
40000
150000
110000
2.8
Groundnut
6000
22000
16000
2.7
Tomato
80000
250000
170000
2.1
Rice
10000
30000
20000
2.0
Tea
90000
NA
NA
NA
Curry leaves
NA
15000
15000
NA
Note: For groundnut and rice costs and returns were worked out for one crop
season and for other crops for one year.
Source: Rajendran (1998).
This table clearly depicts the fact that rice is less productive crop as compared with
other horticultural crops among the selected farms. This could be mainly due to
accounting of different costs and nature of crop. For instance, perennial crops like
coconut and sapota were well established there may not involve much cost unlike
rice. Additionally the market price for cereals is not commensurate with the
increase in input cost. But still the organic farmers preferred to grow rice as one of
the crops on their plots mainly for domestic consumption. Notably, another study
(ICSIM, 1990) reported that mean yield levels from organic farms in the states of
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu were comparable that of conventional farms. Here
crops like rice, minor millets (ragi and jowar) registered more yields, groundnut
and sesame recorded low yields from organic farms than modern (conventional)
farms.
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
Employment generation was found more under organic rice cultivation as weeding
was exclusively done with manual labor. Human labor also did some operations
like catching rats during pollination and grain formation stages and a substantial
amount of human labor was used for weeding operation in the direct sown rice
plots as compared with transplanted fields. Moreover, each and every operation and
supervision was done with utmost care and organic growers were concerned with
ideology than mere economic returns.
VI. Conclusions and Suggestions:
The above discussion explains that organic rice cultivation is associated more
towards farm oriented self sustained system. Strong local resource endowment,
sustained commitment and ideology have influenced the organic farmers to go in
for raising rice under organic system in combination with traditional expertise.
Arguably, adoption of specific farm practice based on rich local experience helped
the growers to sustain the rice production. Followed by this, the local farm based
resources like livestock and farm forestry are also found to influence the rice
cultivation. Though rice cultivation appears to be less economical as compared
with other crops, there is a scope for minimizing the economic cost and
environmental loss, under organic farming system as compared to conventional
farming in the long run. Besides these, environmental balance is maintained where,
crops, trees, animal and man can live more harmoneously.
Major issues like standardization of necessary inputs like vermicompost and
biofertilizers need to be addressed by keeping environment and economic
dimensions of agricultural sustainability in the long run. Similarly, marketing for
certified as organically grown products is a tiresome process and costly that affects
the Indian growers who are interested to export the commodities (DTE, 2001). This
needs to be simplified while keeping the quality of products and human health in
view.
References:
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Possible Alleviatory Steps, Economic and Political Weekly, XXXVII(26):2601-2610.
Down To Earth (2001) Organic Farming - Untapped Potential, 10(8): 34-41.
Fragoso Carlos and Patrick Lavelle (1995) Are Earthworms Important in the
Decomposition of Tropical Litter? In Soil Organisms and Litter Decomposition in
the Tropics Ed. M V Reddy, Oxford and IBH, New Delhi, pp103-112.
GOK (1996) Report of the Expert Committee on Stagnation of Agricultural
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GOI, (2001) Economic Survey, Ministry of Finance, New Delhi.
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1st RDA/ARNOA International Conference
“Development of Basic Standard for Organic Rice Cultivation”
12-15 November 2002, RDA and Dankook Univ. Korea
Hazell Peter (2001) Agriculture and the Environment, Environment and
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Pingali P L, M. Hossain and R V. Gerpacio (1997), Asian Rice Bowls: The
Returning Crisis? Wallingford: CAB International.
Rajendran S (2002) Pesticide Spraying in Kerala – Human Cost and Environment
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-------------- (1998) An Exploratory Study on Organic Farming System in India, In
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Singh R P (1997), Keynote address on People’s Technology and its Relevance in the
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Agriculture in South India, AME and ICSIM, Project report, Bangalore,
Unpublished.
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