Contrary to popular belief, it is much easier to control pets and diseases in Natural farming than in chemical farming. People wonder how natural farming can cope with the deadly range of pests and diseases seen in chemical farming, but the fact is that one never comes across these kinds of pests and diseases in natural farming. It is the system in natural farming that counters pests and diseases. There are no one shot wonders against pests or diseases. The sum total of all the practices and the balance they bring into the system is what deters pests and diseases.
What could be the biggest contributor to causing pests and diseases in cultivated plants? Undoubtedly, the urea and the chemical fertilizers. Having experimented with several crops like coffee, pepper, arecanut, cardamom, cocoa, coconut, banana, ginger etc, I have found that when the chemical diet to plants is cut-off, the incidence of pests and diseases come down tremendously, it is reduced by at least 80%.
If you feel I am pointing fingers without reason or evidence, here follows the reason, with evidence.
Chemical fertilizers induce a strange kind of growth in plants, an unnatural, unhealthy growth. The plants shoot up initially; they have an elongated growth, at least 20 % longer than their natural counterparts but less sturdy.This 20% advantage is only immediate, after a while the natural counter part catches up
Chemical fed plants develop soft tissues. The fibre content of their trunk/stem decreases and the water content increases. It is virtually an open invitation and cakewalk for insects.And how does modern farming respond to this? By applying strong doses of pesticides! Instead of diagnosing the problem pesticides are applied. A classic case of failing to address the exact problem and trying to fix the symptom instead! And what does this pesticide do? Apart from slow poisoning you, it also happens to kills the pests, poisons the plant, weakening it, and also makes it dormant for a while.
Now for the evidence part, try splitting the trunk of a naturally farmed banana and an NPK banana, and the difference can be seen straightaway. Have observed something similar in coffee. There’s an operation in coffee known as de-suckering where unwanted shoots/suckers are pulled out. In my neighbour’s chemical farm the suckers can be pulled out as easily as one pulls out of a cellophane tape, in mine you really have to rip it off.Similarly, with slash weeding, the sickles and knives of my workers get blunted and worn out faster! The few bananas that I have never suffered stem breakages due to wind, whereas the NPK fed ones in my locality do, they need to be supported and tied up with wire.
One of my friends who natural-farms rubber, experienced something similar. The first 2 years, the NPK rubber plants in his neighbourhood out shot his plants recording a 20% higher and faster growth. By the 3 rd year the natural rubber caught up. By the 6th year, the naturally grown trees showed better canopy development, and had bigger girth than rest. They are also immune to trunk/stem breakages and casualties that are common in the area. His plants started yielding an year earlier. This year even under adverse climatic conditions my Friend’s rubber has shown a higher yield than the others in the area. Also his DRC (Dry Rubber content is 15% higher than the rest)
Coming to diseases, dis-ease it is literally, the plant is not at ease with the soil and surroundings. There’s no secret or magic to produce healthy disease free crops. Healthy soils produce healthy plants and healthy plants in turn produce healthy crops and thereby healthy people. As early as in the 1930s itself scientists had discovered a direct link between humus- soil health, plant health, animal health and human health. The results of tests without doubt established that soils rich in humus produced healthy plants that were not affected by pests or diseases and soils poor in humus produced the the exact opposite.
Tests on animals revealed more. Animals fed the greens from humus rich soils required lesser quantities of fodder and were healthy whereas animals fed chemical fed greens were disease prone. In these conducted tests, even the foot and mouth disease seen in cattle that is believed to be contagious, showed surprising results.Animals fed with natural greens were not affected so the scientists went a step further, brought these animals into contact with diseased animals, still the natural fed animals remained were not infected.
The tests on humans went on reinforce this further. Children from different boarding schools were chosen.Boarders from one school were given only naturally grown food and the other chemically fed food. The latter were found to be disease prone whereas the former were unaffected. Need I say more?!
So, natural farming controls diseases and pests and leads to healthy produce not by any major intervention or operation. It is the steps and procedure followed from the seed to soil, at every level and stage that ensures pests and diseases are controlled. Natural framing advocates repelling pests not terminating them. The point here is that pests and diseases, once they sense that the conditions in the area are not conducive, quickly seek fresh pastures. The moment, there appears a chink in the armour, they reappear quick enough.
Chandra,should I rightaway get on to ‘how to put this theory to practice in the farm – the methods’ or do you want me to answer this as part of your final question