This farmer has panacea for ills facing modern farming

Madhya Pradesh - He does not plough his land or use chemical fertilisers

Raju Titus, a farmer from Hoshangabad near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, does not plough his land, or use fertilizers. And he has kept it that way for some 30 years. But the harvest has been good.
The ancestral land on which Raju conducts his experimental farming is about 12 acres. In the 1960s when Norman Borlaug's Green Revolution happened across India, Raju's family too was caught in its tidal waves. The Green Revolution essentially introduced invented high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat and other staples. The new seeds required intense use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Though the produce increased, the soil lost its fertility. But, when after a period, the yield started to come down, Raju and his family were forced to use more modern farming techniques, including more toxic fertilizers, tractors, electric pump etc, which meant more investments and more expenses. The land became more and more barren.
After about 15-20 years of this kind of farming, around the mid 1980s, Raju thought it best to stop his trade because there was nothing coming out of it.
As a final straw, he and his mother approached Friends Rural Centre, a group of Gandhians, who believed in organic farming in Rasuliya, near Hoshangabad.
The Friends advised Raju to stop weeding, tilling and using fertilizers and pesticides. They also gifted him the famous Japanese organic farmer Masanobu Fukuoka's book, One Straw Revolution, which is the exact opposite of Normal Borlaug's theories. After initial hesitation, Raju adopted the no-till farming method that the book recommended.
Instead of planting, he sprinkled seeds. Water too was sprinkled. Weeds and grass were allowed to grow, which contrary to the belief of the mocking villagers, helped the earth to retain water.
Gradually, the land became lush again and healthy. The first harvest was not great, but Raju persisted, and soon the reruns were more than satisfactory. As his earth turned green, cattle from neighbouring farms would come to graze on Raju's farm, and their dung acted like natural manure.

Later, when he found too much grazing was denuding his land, and direct seeding had begun to fail, he sought the advice of Fukuoka himself. The great man told Raju to make pellets of soil and stop monoculture.
The pellets were a mixture of seeds and clay, and the clay part far outweighed the seed part. This is so because the seed draws its manure from the clay coating. As the seeds remain on the surface, they also get sunlight. The experiment succeeded in getting a great soybean crop the next winter.
Raju now is 71-year-old. And a guru of sorts. He says the theory behind the practice is that the weeds and grass raise microbes, earthworms and insects, which drill holes in the soil. Water is retained as a result. They also contribute to the fertility of the soil. The insects guard the crops from other harmful organisms as well. This makes chemical pesticides redundant. The worms, as well as the roots of the trees and plants till the earth in their growth and turn over the soil naturally.
According to Raju, this kind of farming barely demands anything. In India, thousands of farmers commit suicide due to financial reasons because their farming methods require heavy investments. For instance, urea as a fertilizer costs a lot. But if you grow Australian Agesia, it naturally generates urea, says Raju. That means you do away with that expense and to that extent do away with loans. Slowly Raju's methods are being employed in the nearby villages. Raju's farming methods might act like a lifeline to those Indian farmers who are prone to depression and suicide.
Raju's email: rajuktitus@gmail.com.or He also writes a No-Till and zero cost farming blog.

• India