A survey of organic and conventional potato fields shows that species evenness is greater under organic management. Replicating these levels of evenness in a field trial shows that the evenness of natural enemies found in organic fields promotes pest control and increases crop biomass. This is independent of the identity of the dominant enemy species, so is a result of evenness itself.

Organic farming supports higher biodiversity. Research involving the Colorado potato beetle shows that this increased diversity can deliver a better ecosystem service in the form of more effective pest control.

The prime objective of the study is to estimate and compare the CO2 and carbon emission by direct use of fossil fuels in farm operations under the conventional and resource conservation systems in major wheat growing regions of India.

Farmer Subhash Sharma watched the decline of his soil and agricultural yields before he let nature be his teacher and understood the agro-economics of agriculture. He abandoned insecticides and chemical fertilisers and relied instead on the cow, trees, birds and vegetation.

Jayant Barve used to market chemical fertilisers and pesticides and practise chemical agriculture himself. In 1988, he switched to sustainable agriculture, and has never looked back since. In this interview he emphasises that despite much lower input costs, organic farming does give the same yield as chemical agriculture, sometimes even more. An interview by Claude Alvares.

With chemical farming becoming uneconomical and grain yields declining, more and more farmers are switching to organic agriculture, says natural scientist G Nammalvar in this interview with Claude Alvares. Nammalvar has been training organic farmers and setting up learning centres in Tamil Nadu for three decades.

Farmers work with knowledge systems that evolve with time and circumstance. They learn and unlearn, choosing the appropriate knowledge in their struggle to earn a livelihood. While scientists rely on averages, the knowledge of local people is dynamic and up-to-date, continually revised as conditions alter, writes A Thimmaiah.

All over India rural revivalists are rejecting the corporatised, programmatic, high-input model of agriculture and following agro-ecological approaches in which shared, distributed knowledge systems provide ways to adapt to changing climate and a shrinking natural resource base.

Hill agriculture in India is confronted with the problem of uneven topography, soil erosion, small landholdings, inaccessibility with poor road infrastructure and opportunities of fertile land, high and dependable precipitation in the form of rain, snow and an agriculture friendly climate that can be the best bet for the development of watershed development programmes on a large scale.