SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES 

As in agricultural areas throughout India, in past decades Belun and surrounding villages had increasingly turned to the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in the hopes of increasing yield and quality of crops and decreasing predation by pests.  The long-term result was increased production costs, eventual drop off in yield, contaminated soil and ground/surface water, drastic reduction in the diversity of species in the rice paddy ecosystem, and disappearance of a range of native animal species. 

iREBEL has been working with villagers for over ten years to reduce the use of these harmful and ultimately counterproductive chemicals.  Our efforts have included the following:

• Launching a pilot project to cultivate vegetables and other commodities using organic procedures.  Initial results indicate that not only are these products much healthier for the environment but they command higher prices for farmers than non-organically grown ones.
• Minimizing and in some cases stopping the use of chemical pesticides by implementing biological control of pests.
• Introducing bio-fertiliser and green manure, which have considerably increased yields per hectare; in addition, populations of crabs, mollusks, and fishes, which serve as a low cost protein source of the poor villagers, have increased markedly in the paddy field ecosystem.