Natural Farming in Oil Palm

It’s been more than 3 years since we started practicing natural farming on our farm, we initially got 3 cows and started natural farming in our 5.25 acres oil palm plot and here are my observations and I recommend every farmer to switch to natural farming.

Input costs

On the input costs front, typical chemical farmers spend 10000 on chemical fertilizers and 4000 on farmyard manure (FYM) per acre and we completely eliminated these and we spend around 5000 per acre on inputs to cows and Jeevamrutham. And the remaining costs for harvesting and other regular maintenance around 10000 per acre remain the same in both, i.e. we could save around 40% (i.e. 10000 per acre) on input cost.

Yield

Yield improvement is phenomenal over the last 3 years since we started natural farming 3 years back. We used to get 50+ tons in our 5.25 acres oil palm plot and it gradually increased to 80 tons per year. It’s a 46% hike in 3 years.

Chemical Vs. Natural farming

In chemical cultivation we used give prescribed dose of fertilizers along once in every 3 months and use weedicides every 4-5 months to suppress weeds. We also used to give 2-3 tractor trucks of farmyard manure per acre every alternate year. In natural farming we give around 10 liters of Jeevamrutham per month for each palm and we also give 30-40kgs of composted sugarcane press mud cured with Jeevamrutham to each palm every year. And for weed control we effectively started mulching with oil palm leaves and opt for manual weeding whenever required.

Benefits to farmer

·         30-40% reduction in input costs.

·         40-50% improvement in yield.

·         This translates to Rs 40000-50000 additional income per acre( Oil palm bunches fetches 8000 per ton)

·         Improvement to soil fertility and water holding capacity.

·         Reduced water consumption.

·         Improved drought and stress resistance for crops.

Benefits to mother Earth

·         No soil pollution and soil fertility improves year on year.

·         No water pollution because of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides.

·         No harm or destruction to numerous soil microbes, honey bees, insects, frogs, birds and many other species.

Other benefits

·         No chemical and pesticide residues in our food.

·         Food with improved nutritional values.

·         Governments can save on input subsides given on chemical fertilizers.

Media Coverage

Filtered Jeevarutham through Drip

Earlier we tried giving Jeevarutham through drip using venturi and were successful but we could only inject 50-60 liters an hour which is a problem on slightly big farms. On our plot we have close to 600 coconut, 2200 cocoa and 350 Oil Palms. Our monthly requirement is anywhere between 7000-9000 liters per month and it became almost impossible this way and on top of it Jeevarutham needs to be manually filtered. So we finally fixed this problem with Jeevarutham filtering unit and injecting it to drip using 0.5 hp pump.

Before I built this I visited a friend in Gadwal and saw a working model and altered it to suit our requirements.This is how it is.

Jeevarutham tanks

We build two Jeevarutham tanks next to our cattle shed each with 1800 liters capacity approx. Each tank is of 5 feet high and 4 feet in diameter with 2 outlets, the first outlet(3 inch) is at the bottom to send the slurry out and the other one is 1 inch which is 1 feet high from the ground so that all the sediments from the undisturbed Jeevarutham is stuck between these 2 outlets.

Filter bed

Jeevarutham flows from 1 inch outlet to the filter bed, filter bed is 3.5 feet wide, 3 feet high and 8 feet long and has a 1 inch outlet in the bottom. It is filled with 2 inch pebbles,1 inch pebbles and ½ inch pebbles and coarse sand each of ½ feet, 2 inch pebbles at the bottom and sand on the top.

Filtered Jeevarutham tank

This tank is to just store the filtered Jeevarutham, there is a 1 inch outlet from bottom of the filter bed to this tank. This tank is 3.5 feet wide, 6 feet high and 8 feet long. We use a 0.5 HP mono block pump to inject filtered Jeevarutham to the drip mail line.

How this works.

We mix the ingredients of Jeevarutham in the tank (i.e Desi cow dung, Desi cow urine, Jagger, Flour and hand full of mud) according to the proportion and stir it for 2 days and leave it untouched for 12 hours so that all the un dissolved heavy particles will settle down. We use the inch outlet on the tanks to run Jeevarutham into the filter bed where it gets filtered and moves the tank next from where it gets pumped to the drip. The left over sediments in the tank can be drained using the 3 inch out let at the bottom of the tank and use it. We are using this to irrigate our green fodder.

Filter Cleaning and maintenance.

Depending on the frequency of the usage, efficiency of the sand on the top will slowly come down, so try to remove the top layer of sediments on the sand whenever possible and replace the top sand with fresh sand when the efficiency comes down drastically. Once year or when ever required remove the two layers of pebbles and put them back after cleaning them. 

Few more things to take care of.

1. Have at least 3 inch outlet for slurry so that it doesn't get clogged.
2. Adjust capacity of the tanks according to your Jeevarutham needs.
3.  Under the filter bed have the outlet at least ½ inch above the base so that any heavy particles if at all any will settle down.
4. Attach foot valve covered with a mesh  to the inlet pipe of the motor as a precaution to prevent dry leave, flowers and other going into the drip system.
5. Pay attention to use the round shaped gravel and avoid flat faced stones in the filter bed.

Cocoa in Oil Palm

Planted Cocoa as inter crop in our 10 years old Oil Palm plantation. We should have done this four years back. Around 5^th year is the ideal time for planting cocoa in Oil Palm.

Procured cocoa saplings from the nursery maintained by Mondelez formerly known as Cadbury at Ganganagudem village (Close to Eluru), West Godavari @4.5 Rupees a plant.

Cocoa saplings

Our Oil Palm is spaced at 9X9 meters and planted cocoa in center between two rows of Oil Palm at 3X3 meters. With this spacing we planted around 140 cocoa plants per acre. While planting vermin compost enriched with VAM (Arbuscular Mycorrhizal) is applied in the pits.

Plantation Layout

In ideal conditions cocoa should start yielding from second year and should attain maximum yield by 5^th or 6^th year.  Cocoa Yield in Oil palm is not par with cocoa in Coconut. Average yield of cocoa in Oil Palm in our area is around 150 – 300 Kilograms per acre while it is 300-500 Kilograms in coconut.

Soon we will start giving Jeevarutham along with water and as spray as well.

That’s all for now, will keep you updated.

Update - July 2016

We did the training and pruning of the cocoa sapling in last 2-3 months and this is how they look after 1 year of planting. We noticed flowering on one of our plants.

This is the shape we intent to give to our plants as they grow.

Jeevamrutham through drip

Finally succeeded in injecting Jeevamruthatm into drip after filtering. This is what we did.

Prepared Jeevamrutham in a 200 liters drum and stirred it for 2 days and left it undisturbed on third day so that all the heavy particles will settle down. Filtered 150 liters of it into another drum with a cloth and left it undisturbed for 1 hour in the second drum. Covered the tip of the Venturi with another cloth and inserted the tip of the Venturi in into the drum. That’s it. Venturi sucked Jeevarutham at 60 Liters/hour. 

So far we finished two cycles and did not run into any issues and I am hopeful we will not run into any issues like drippers clogging as we are thoroughly filtering. Let’s see.

Palm Oil Yield – 2014

On one of our Palm Oil plot we recorded the yield for the year 2014.

On our 5 acre plot total yield was around 55 tones which translate to 11 tons / acre. This is 2 tones per acre less than 2013 yield.

Palm oil has to be harvested throughout the year every fortnight, but 75% of yield is between May and Sep.

Price paid to farmers was decided by OILFED based on a predefined formula. OILFED declares the price per ton every month. Price paid to farmers was in the range between 6300 – 7500 in 2014.

NREGA : Death knell for Indian agriculture and economy.

NREGA which is aimed at providing at atleast 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household in villages and improve the rural infrastructure is turning out to be a worst nightmare for Indian agriculture sector.

Abundant and affordable work force was one of the reasons why Indian agriculture was able to overcome the challenges like small holding, lack of mechanization, lack of technology advancement, etc. Now with lack of proper execution NREGA is turning one of our strengths into our weakness.

Let me explain how this is being executed in our area, every morning hundreds of people gather at the proposed work site for attendance and then spend close to couple of hours doing nothing productive and then leave. Literally they get paid for attendance. And why would anybody to go a farmer’s farm to work and get paid the same amount.

Every other sector is being adversely impacted with this. Industrialist turned Politician who got elected as Guntur MP recently quoted in parliament that when they advertised for 200 Engineering positions they received 2000 applications but when they advertised for 2000 low skilled work force they received mere 200 applications.

Does this impact just agriculture alone, no each and every sector and each and every citizen will be impacted. With increasing input costs prices of the commodities like milk, rice, wheat, pulses, cooking oil, fruits and vegetables will be increased and all of us have to pay more to feed our families. On the other hand industries which depend on agriculture for their raw material like sugar, cotton and other agricultural commodities need to pay more and eventually that is passed on to the end customer.

We can survive without any other sector but not agriculture. We need food to feed this nation. Agriculture cannot and will not stop but evolve out of this.

Hope the new governments here both in state and center will address this problem at most urgency.

Jai kisan