Organic farming has gained popularity due to its tremendous health and environmental advantages over non-organic farming. The use of various pesticides and insecticides has brought alarming ill effects on human health, whereas organic farming supports biodiversity and provides clean and healthy food stuff to consumers with a high level of satisfaction.
Here, I would like to share how to start organic farming from scratch, which includes from initial planning to the final soil stage.
Why should I buy an Organic Product?
A question arises why I would love to buy an organic product that is more expensive than the non-organic; the answer is very simple and understandable. The use of insecticides and pesticides has many health issues due to the presence of various synthetic chemicals, which may have serious health issues.
Organic farming is ecofriendly, causing less air pollution along with preserving soil health, and at the same time you can sell your product at a higher price, which is an additional advantage.
1. Formulate an Initial Business Plan for Sustainability:
Before you start organic farming, your business plan is an essential step to take, which includes the initial layout of the farm depending upon the size of the farm, your priority potential crop, your financial health (budget), and your marketing strategy.
Always keep your attention on various threats and possible opportunities and potential of your business to achieve a promising result.
2. Advantages of Starting a Small Scale Organic Farm:
Keeping in view budget constants and limited available resources always recommended acquiring a piece of land on lease instead of mass production on a large scale.
Choose off-season crops and use tunnel farming or other modern cultivation techniques to have more output and sell your product at more cost in the market. Gradually earn money and expand your business with your profit.
3. Initial Soil Preparation for Better Fertility:
Soil preparation is an integral part of organic farming, so enrich your soil with composite and natural fertilizer (cow dung) to improve fertility without synthetic chemicals. The use of natural ingredients will ensure the presence of micronutrients in the soil, which are important to grow organic plants with all possible health benefits.
4. Appropriate Farm Land Location:
The morphology of soil is an important factor, which includes quality and nature of land, access to canal or tube well water, and the climatic condition to make a decision for the wanted crop.
Before you start cultivating anything, the soil and water testing (in the case of tube well water) are important steps. To minimize the cost of production, it is always recommended to install solar-driven water pumps to save money and reduce the cost of production.
5. Challenges in Organic Farming:
Since organic farming is labor intensive and requires lots of manual work, it is not a low hanging fruit and needs more energy and lots of efforts to learn different techniques to increase and maintain the fertility of the soil in a good manner. So it is always recommended to share your thoughts and bottlenecks with your fellow farmers to overcome the challenges.
6. Remunerations of Small Organic Farms:
For beginners, it is always recommended to start with a small piece of land due to so many issues like lack of basic learning techniques, labor issues, etc. The small farm or garden can produce good-quality products due to better and more controlled farm management and planning.
7. Organic Farming Jobs and Opportunities:
Since organic farming is labor-intensive, this requires lots of manual work. The farmer is supposed to engage the services of a composite specialist, livestock handler, farm labor, and other supporting staff. So another advantage of starting organic farming is job creation for locals through skill enhancement and hands-on experience.
Organic farming is the best choice for health-conscious consumers and has great potential to grow to meet future growing demands. So by thoughtful initial planning and a well-conceived business plan, by maintaining adequate fertility of the soil, and by using the latest agriculture technique and choice of crop needed, one can start organic farming with significant progress and good profit.
This basic objective of this article is to provide some basic information about organic farming for beginners or for those who are interested in starting their own business. However, one can always learn more in our future correspondence regarding organic farming.
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