Organic Training is the farmer’s first step of his/her journey to organic farming. Owing to various factors like poverty, doubtfulness or inability to leave the farm our first training is always conducted in the villages/vicinity of where the farmer lives. You would be amazed at all the places we have conducted our trainings. We’ve conducted our trainings in a temple, under a banyan tree, agriculture rural extension offices, farm fields, farmer’s homes, godowns, and mango tree !!! We bring back the good old times of learning by conducting organic farming trainings at these places.
There are quite a few mis-conceptions about the “right” organic farming methodology/practices. Some of the different organic farming methodologies practiced around the world are :
- Zero budget farming (promoted by agri-scientists like Subhash Palekar)
- Bio-Dynamic farming (pioneered by Rudolf Steiner)
- Homa farming (Agnihotra)
- Natural farming (promoted by Masanobu Fukuoka)
- Do nothing farming
- French intensive and biointensive
- Agro-ecologic system
- Rishi kheti
- Vedic farming
The above listed just a few. To a consumer and quite a few times to the farmer all the methodologies sound confusing. Proponents of each farming methodology claim their farming methodology to be better/superior than the others. There are a lot of emotions and passions that get generated / involved on which farming methodology is the right methodology.
Well, folks, here’s our view – We don’t force an ideology, whatever the methodology, as long as it’s not using chemicals, pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMO), it’s okay with us !!! Some of the basic tenets of all methodologies of organic farming are :
- Soil management without the use of synthetic chemicals and using natural techniques (green manure and composting)
- Weed management, without the use of artificial weedicides
- Raising livestock in the farm to complement growing
- Encourage crop diversity
- Non usage of genetic modified organisms (GMO’s)
- Pest management, control pests using natural techniques
The above listed are not exhaustive tenets, but some basic tenets.
Some of the concepts that we train the farmers in our training are listed below. We customize each training and we don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Each training and each participant is unique for us. Our on-farm curriculum is listed below. A typical on-farm training takes 1 day.
- Seed Selection & Treatment
- Soil Nutrition Management (both theoretical and practical training provided)
- Compost
- Vermicompost
- Jeevamrutha
- Panchagavya
- Bramhasthra
- Agnihasthra
- Neem Cake
- Pongamia Cake
- Cow urine
- Crop Management.
- Pest & Disease Management.
- Cow Urine
- Neem Oil
- Pongamia Oil
- Tricoderma
- Pseudomonas
- Dashaparani Extract
- Puchimarandu
- Overview of Participatory Guarantee System and Third Party Certification
Once the farmer has completed the first level / basic on-farm training, based on the interest of the farmer and our internal assessment of the field officer we invite the farmers for a 2 day classroom based training, in the class room training both the theoretical and practical aspects of organic farming are covered. These classroom trainings are covered by some of the best trainers in the field of organic farming. Needless to say the classroom based trainings are more advanced than the on-farm trainings.
TruTrade charges Rs. 50 (around 70 US cents) per participant for on-farm training. I am sure you would agree this cost does not even cover / recover TruTrade’s costs, but we charge this amount from the farmers so that the farmers take these trainings seriously.
Please click on the below Facebook link to see the pictures from some of the trainings conducted.
We hope you have got a fair understanding what we do during our trainings. Should you wish to know more about our trainings, please reach email us at care@trutrade.org