(UNI SPECIAL)Debapriya MukherjeeNew Delhi, April 5 -- In recent years, organic farming has come to occupy a powerful moral position in public discourse. Farmers' markets, government programmes, and consumer movements increasingly portray organic agriculture as the inevitable path toward sustainable food production.
More recently, the idea of natural farming, promising cultivation without external inputs, has added another dimension to this enthusiasm. Yet beneath this growing popularity lies a question that farmers and consumers rarely ask: are we truly understanding the natural fertility of soil, or are we merely replacing chemical inputs with commercially promoted organic ones?My own experience with paddy cultivation compelled me to refl...