Eco-farming: relevance and rewards

Eco-farming tries to cut down costly inputs and minimize negative environmental impacts by making intelligent use of existing ecological factors. It is developed as an alternative to the increasingly intensive use of irrigation and fertilizers and tries to free farmers from constraining factors in the local natural environment. The element of eco-farming is a part of traditional farming system that can be promoted among the poor farmers living in rainfed conditions. An important key element for promoting theses of agricultural practices is to reduce poverty in India. These can only be possible by catalytic development of people's association that ensures people's participation. Ecological farming can provide large scale carbon sinks and offer many other options for mitigating climate change. In addition farming with biodiversity is the most effective strategy to adapt agriculture to future climatic conditions. A mix of different crops and varieties in one field is a proven and highly reliable farming method to increase resilience to erratic weather changes. This farming is better than conventional agriculture because it protects nature by taking advantage of natural goods and services such as biodiversity, nutrient cycling, soil regeneration and natural enemies of pests and integrating these natural goods into agro-ecological systems that ensure food for all today and tomorrow.