Workshop on Healthy Soils

A Workshop on

HEALTHY SOILS – SAFE FOOD – LIVELIHOODS

                      Date   :   20^th July 2016, Wednesday, 20^th July 2016   

           Time :   From 11.00 am to 3.30 pm   

Venue: Kasturba Hall, Gandhi Bhavan, Kumara Krupa Road,  Bengaluru

• Food is nutrition. Nutritious food gives strength – immunity and prevents diseases and deficiencies. Hence, nutritious food is safe and is a basic need.  As a consumer, everyone have the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to choose safe food.   But, today we have shifted to the industrial mode of agriculture involving unsafe agrochemicals and controversial Genetically Modified Crops and hence our food is unsafe. The poisonous agrochemicals are feeding our food crops. We are consuming these food crops and this is the route cause of ill health.

• Agrochemicals have severely damaged our soils.  Our soils are contaminated with hazardous toxins and pesticides.  This has resulted in loss of soil fertility, which has endangered the livelihoods of disadvantaged smallholder farmers.

• Now, there is an urgent need to build Healthy Soils to support the livelihoods of farmers who produce safe foods for consumers.  In this situation, Diversity Based Ecological Farming Systems is the only choice.  This system conserves – protects and rehabilitate degraded soils by transforming them into living soils.    Farmers are concerned about soil health situation and are ready to adopt Diversity Based Ecological Farming Systems and expect support system from the government.

• To protect our Soils – farmers – consumers, the Central & State Governments have to introduce newer policies to address issues related to nutritional security for soils – farm animals and humans. Supporting farmers to build contour bunds across the slope of their farm lands, providing seeds / sapplings to generate biomass on farm and outside the farm, encouraging them to make and apply compost, liquid manures,  providing information on importance of crop rotation, mixed cropping practices, mulching and  soil moisture conservation methods will improve the farmer and farming systems in our country.  To make Government to act on this at the earliest, there is an immediate need to sensitize our policy makers on importance of soil organisms, which survives only with soil organic matter and this can be addressed only through adoption of Diversity Based Ecological Farming Systems.

Dr. Claude Alvares, Director of Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI) is presiding this event.  Organic Farmers, concerned consumers, dieticians and food analysts, scientists, Department officials, Institutions involved in safe food campaigns, legal experts, artists and people representatives will take part in this event.   A committee will be formed during the event to take this forward.

Contact:
P Srinivas Vasu |
<vasu.gunjur@gmail.com>
+91 9483467779
ಮಣ್ಣ ಬಿಟ್ಟವರಿಗೆ ಆಧಾರವೇ ಇಲ್ಲ – ಶ್ರೀ ಪುರಂದರದಾಸರು

Let us Rebuild Healthy Soils for Healthy Foods for Healthy Society