Impediments in adoption of organic farming - a few lessons from the farmers who reverted to conventional farming practices.

Published online
17 Oct 2018
Content type
Bulletin article; Conference paper
URL
https://www.thuenen.de/media/publikationen/thuenen-report/Thuenen-Report_54_Vol2.pdf

Author(s)
Birajdar, G. & Kate, T.

Publication language
English
Location
India & Maharashtra

Abstract

The stated goal of 'Organic 3.0' is to "bring organic out of its current niche into the mainstream (Arbenz, Gould & Stopes, 2015)". This means to understand how majority of the farmers would be convinced to adopt organic farming practices and will find them satisfactory enough to continue with. One of the effective ways to understand this is to ask the farmers themselves about the factors that discourage them from adoption of organic farming practices. We interviewed 67 farmers from Vidarbha region of central India, who started with organic farming and then abandoned it for different reasons. 65.68% of the interviewed farmers quit organic farming in first 3 years. The leading factors mentioned by farmers included perceived lack of profitability, availability of resources (mainly farmyard manure and labor), and external barriers (factors including lack of capital buffer, indebtedness, sickness/death/marriage in family, or drought/flood that forced them to quit organic farming or farming altogether).

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