The organic manures including farm yarn manure, compost, green manures, animal waste like bone meal, blood meal and manures created by using earth worms have a vital role to play in enriching soil properties including water holding capacity, soil structure and, free play of air and water which encourages good crop growth. Manures do add valuable nutrients, particularly micro nutrients but the nutrient content of manures is not definite and varies from place to place. Soil supplied with good organic manure isproductive and fertile. The release of various nutrients in this soil particularly phosphate for crop use, is ensured by regular application of organic manures which also encourages soil microbial activity. The response to chemical fertilisers, improved seed and irrigation water is enhanced if soil is well supplied with organic manures. The micro nutrient deficiency is greatly minimised in soils which receive regular manure application.The chemical fertilisers have definite nutrient content and supply large quantities of nutrients, particularly nitrogen phosphate and potash. In an agricultural system, where use of good seed, irrigation, plant protection chemicals, implements and machinery is in high gear, chemical fertilisers act as master factor in increasing crop yields quickly. The increase in food grains production from a level of 100 million tonnes in India in 1970-71, to a level of 200 million tonnes by 1996-97 has been possible because of additional use of 11 million tonnes of different fertilisernutrients. Organic manures can never take the place of chemical fertiliser in terms of increasing the crop yield quickly. Since our declared intention is to double our existing production of food grains, fibre, sugar and other crops in the next 10 years, we must ensure that we use 60 to 65 million tonnes of different fertiliser materials against current use of 34 million tonnes there is no escape from this.

Our use of organic manures is inadequate largely because we are not putting back the farm waste. Hardly 25 to 30 per cent of farm waste is going back to our soils. Nearly 30 per cent is burnt as fuel and the rest is wasted. Additionally, we have not established recycling of human waste as manure, as China has done.

The national policy must be to encourage greater use of organic manures and chemical fertilisers. Attitude of the government and the Fertiliser Association of India is positive in this regard.

It is necessary to encourage farmers to develop their own manure pits and use farm waste,including animal waste, for generation of organic manure and biogas. Just as there is a crop competition scheme for increasing crop yields, there should be a manure competition scheme where the villages with highest manure output should be suitably rewarded. It is seen that compost pits supplied with single super phosphate and small dose of ammonium sulphate gets ready faster because the rotting process is encouraged. The nutrients in the compost are preserved and application of fertilisers to the main field can be suitably reduced. For every layer of compost about 30 kg single super phosphate and 5 kg ammonium sulphate should be added. Such compost is rich in nitrogen phosphate, sulphur and calcium and gives better results.

Simultaneously, a system must be developed to recycle human excreta for the twin purpose of generating biogas which can be provided to each household and also for generating farm manure. A scheme to this effect has already been successfully implemented in a few villages inGujarat.

Because of inadequate organic manure production at the farm level, lot of organic manure is being sold to farmers in the bagged form at a high price. There is no regulation of any kind to control the quality and price of these manures. States like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, UP, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal must take initiative and develop their own guide lines for controlling the price and quality of organic manures sold to the farmers. It is necessary to develop control order for manures on the lines of fertiliser control order.

It is imperative that chemical fertilisers are used judiciously. They are expensive and need to be used properly to get the best results. Excessive use of chemical fertilisers results occasionally into spoiling or crop lands, but here the management aspect is important. The dose, time and the method of application of fertiliser is critical.

Fertiliser application has crossed 34 million tonnes level but still only 70 per cent of the farmers are usingfertilisers. There are areas where only 45 to 55 per cent of the farmers are using fertilisers. It is necessary to encourage use of organic manures in areas where farmers are not using fertilisers and then take up programmes to widen the fertiliser use base.

There is no scope for any controversy or extreme attitude. We must encourage greater use of organic manures by farmers own generation of manures and widen base of fertiliser use to double our copy yields.