Types of agriculture

Traditional agriculture

Traditional farming uses local seeds, animal power, farmyard manure and knowledge handed down over generations. It includes subsistence farming and shifting cultivation (called jhum in north-east India), where a forest patch is cleared and burnt, cropped for a few years and then left fallow to recover. Jhum is sustainable when the fallow cycle is long, but becomes damaging when population pressure shortens it.

Natural farming

Natural farming tries to farm with almost no external inputs. The Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, author of *The One-Straw Revolution*, promoted no tilling, no chemical fertiliser, no weeding by herbicides and no pesticides. In India, Zero Budget Natural Farming (associated with Subhash Palekar) uses on-farm preparations such as jeevamrut (from cow dung, cow urine, jaggery and pulse flour) and beejamrut (a seed treatment), along with mulching.

Organic farming

Organic farming bans synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and GM seeds and uses compost, green manure, biofertilisers, crop rotation and biological pest control. Produce can be certified organic by approved agencies, which allows a price premium.

Modern (conventional) agriculture

Modern farming uses HYV or hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, mechanisation and assured irrigation, often as monoculture. It gives high yields but can degrade soil, deplete groundwater and reduce biodiversity.

GM-based agriculture

Genetically modified (GM) crops carry genes transferred from another organism. Bt cotton carries a gene from *Bacillus thuringiensis* that makes the plant toxic to bollworms; it was approved for commercial cultivation in India in 2002. Concerns include pest resistance, effects on non-target organisms, gene flow to wild relatives, seed costs and corporate control of seeds. Bt brinjal was placed under a moratorium in 2010.

Sustainable agriculture

Sustainable farming blends the best of these: productive but low in chemicals, water-efficient, diverse and fair to farmers.

Key points

• Jhum = slash-and-burn shifting cultivation in north-east India.
• Fukuoka: natural, "do-nothing" farming; Palekar: ZBNF in India.
• Organic farming forbids synthetic chemicals and GM seeds.
• Bt cotton is the GM crop approved for commercial use in India (2002).

Common mistakes

• Treating natural farming and organic farming as identical; natural farming avoids even most external organic inputs.
• Believing Bt crops kill all insects; the Bt protein acts mainly on certain larvae.