India: NGO educates farmers about good farming practices

With government running centres and universities not helping farmers in addressing their issues, an NGO dedicated to farmers has come to their rescue from the problems.

In a first of its kind, this NGO named ‘Dr Surinder Dalal Keet Saksharta Mission’, does not teach farmers in classes or in closed rooms, but in the fields and at their farms to practically tell them why they do not need pesticide in their farms. The society selects those farms which are near the main road as it is convenient for participants to reach and participate.


The NGO is named after a Haryana-based scientist, Dr Surinder Dalal, who died in 2003 and gave a theory to farmers that the amount of fertilisers and pesticides that they were using in the fields was not required.

To make the state poison-free, and to make farmers aware regarding rational use of fertilisers, this NGO will organise farm-classes at different farms in eight districts of the state from July 31, where farmers will be apprised of the unnecessary excessive use of pesticide and fertilisers. No other organisation has ever done farm-class-cum-training at this level.

Under the campaign, already many classes have been held as they were staretd last year on cotton crop in Mansa and this year from January, the classes were held in eleven districts on crops like wheat and mustard and in the month of April and May. The training was held in Nabha on various vegetables and 8 to10 classes were taken.

While farmers are struggling unsuccessfully to cope with the present unfavourable conditions, this NGO has been organising training classes at fields of farmers in Punjab, as majority of the farmers are not well aware of rational use of fertilisers and pesticides, they usually act on hearsay or on advice of shopkeepers.

After research, Dr Dalal told farmers about the integrated pest management (IPM) and told them that they should not spray pesticides in the fields. He said it was important to know the insect before killing it.

Though the NGO is Haryana-based NGO but farmers of the state, after getting impressed by thoughts started giving education to fellow farmers.

One of the members of the NGO said some farmers spray extra pesticide out of fear and to get rid of the pests immediately, without calculating the cost of the spray and expected loss.

The NGO works on integrated pest management (IPM) that focuses on economic threshold level (ETL) in which the farmers are told that the pest should be present in the fields up to certain level and that is known as ‘Threshold level’. If the level increases, then fertilisers can be used.