Dr Dwipendra Thakuria, Professor (Soil Microbiology)
Contd from previous issue
With the help of PKVY, the government aims to support and promote: (1) Organic farming, (2) Reduction in dependence on fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, (3) Improvement of the soil health while increasing the yields, and (4) Organic food, thus produced will be linked with modern marketing tools and local markets.The Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North East Region (MOVCD) and Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) launched in 2015 to encourage chemical free farming. Both these schemes are promoting certification under Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) and National Program for Organic Production (NPOP), respectively targeting domestic and exports markets. The funding pattern under the scheme is in the ratio of 60:40 by the Central and State Governments, respectively. In the case of North Eastern and the Himalayan States, Central Assistance is provided in the ratio of 90:10 (Centre: State).
Sub-components of Biofertilizer entrepreneurship:
There are three sub-components in biofertilizer entrepreneurship where rural educated youth can concentrate. These sub-components are: (1) mass-production of biofertilizers, (2) extension service providers, and (2) biofertilizer marketing.
Biofertilizers are of different types based on their taxonomic identities namely Rhizobium, Azospirillum, Azotobacter, Bacillus, Pseudomonas,Gluconacetobacter, etc.
However, biofertilizers commonly grouped based on their functionality namely Associative N2-fixers (e.g., Azospirillum for rice, Azotobacter for oilseeds and vegetables, etc.), Symbiotic N-fixers (Rhizobium for pulses), phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB), potash solubilizing bacteria (KSB), Zinc solubilizing bacteria (ZnSB), compost accelerating microbes / bacteria / fungi), plant hormone producers, etc. However, only a few bacterial biofertilizers like Rhizobium, Azospirillum, Azotobacter and PSB are available in the market. A large-groups of efficient biofertilizers are yet to be mass produced. Moreover, there is host-specificity in Rhizobium-legume symbiosis, where Rhizobium biofertilizer for specific legume crop is not available. So, there is tremendous scopes for mass production of biofertilizers and making them available to farmers. However, the technical know-how on biofertilizers among farmers are at the rudimentary stages.
Thus, promotion of biofertilizer also needs extensive extension work to convince the farmers about the need of biofertilizer use for increase in productivity. The rural educated youths are to be trained up for their skill enhancement on biofertilizer techniques, so that they themselves can act as local extension service providers to farmers and thereby earn income. Marketing of biofertilizer is a very difficult task as they are not primary inputs like seed and fertilizer. Again, the farmers’ acceptance to biofertilizer use has been far from satisfactory. This is the main reason why effective demand has not been created so far. Even if in few cases there is the demand of biofertilizer but its limited to few types like Rhizobium, Azotobacter, and PSBs. There is a huge scope for enhancing the capacity of biofertilizer production for other specific biofertilizer agents. To create awareness amongst the farmers and to popularize the products emphasis should be given to: (1) field demonstration (2) field day, group discussions and (3) farmers’ visits to CAUs/SAUs/ICAR institutions/State Agriculture Departments for demonstration on biofertilizer production units, etc. Besides farmers awareness there are also some other technical constraints associated with the promotion of biofertilizer in India. As for example, Marketing constraints, because of its short self-life (liquid formulation is encouraged for longer shelf-life i.e. 6-8 months, lack of proper storage, inadequate guidelines to consumers, inadequate production/promotion efforts. There are also challenges involve in taking up an entrepreneurship. The effective planning and proper guidance and financial assistance from Govt. departments / banks can motivate rural educated youths positively for taking Biofertilizers as a Rural Bio-entrepreneurship avenue for self-employment and helping adoption of eco-friendly farming practices by farming communities in ecologically sensitive NER states.
The writer is from the School of Natural Resource Management, College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, Central Agricultural University (Imphal) Umiam, 793103, Meghalaya. For further details contact:- Public Relation & Media Management Cell, CAU, Imphal. Email:
[email protected]