A workshop on crop diversity and organic farming was held in Chandipur near Mitrapur under Nilagiri block on Sunday.
Internationally acclaimed environmentalist, promoter of organic farming and conservation of seed diversity Dr Vandana Shiva attending the event stressed on crop diversity, organic farming and conservation of indigenous seeds.
She lamented that in the greed for more production, farmers are destroying the indigenous seeds by using chemicals.
Organic farming should be system based rather than individual component based. It should have integrated land management system (forests, range lands,waste lands, rain-fed and irrigated lands), livestock and households. Thus, the organic farming would be pivotal in enhancing ecological integrity, a state which will lead to sustainability, Dr Shiva told.
Dr Shiva, who is founder of the Navdanya Trust, said Odisha had been a birth place of indica varieties of paddy seeds and lamented that most of them perished due to want of conservation and organic farming.
Prof Dr AK Panigrahi, an expert in organic agriculture, who is also associated with Navdanya Foundation, attended the workshop. He claimed once upon a time Odisha had about 25,000 varieties of paddy seeds but now hardly a few are available due to no conservations.
“In western Odisha one Kamala Pujari has about 200 varieties of paddy seeds and in Niali, one Natabar Sarangi has about 400 varieties of seeds,” Dr Panigrahi said, claiming that his seeds bank in Baleswar had 1,017 varieties of paddy seeds which were climate resilient.
FM University VC Prof Madhumita Das, Prof Bishnu Prasad Dash, Dr Rajashree Dutta and Kusum Panigrahi among others spoke.
Support system for organic farming should be promoted in place of subsidy. This support system should do the work of facilitating, disseminating and promoting organic agriculture systems in generic sense, the speakers advocated.
They further said that diverse use of seeds not only be adopted for paddy; also for vegetables and other indigenous creatures.
On the occasion, some local farmers were felicitated.
Source ( The Pioneer)