Organic Agriculture in Coastal Areas

Abstract

India is endowed with heterogeneous landforms and variety of climatic conditions which provide macro relief of high plateau, open valleys, rolling upland, fertile plains, swampy low lands and barren deserts (Sehgal et al., 1992). Among them, the coastal region is most important because it includes both land and marine resources besides intense interactions between various natural processes and human activities takes place which are important factors for development. India has a long coastline of about 5422 km excluding islands which includes 8 states and 3 union territories (Table 1). Between the Western Ghats and West coast lies the narrow Western coastal plain, Eastern coastal plain stretches between Eastern Ghats and East coastal. Both the coastal regions are interspaced by several river systems which brings fertile silt and water from the mountain ranges. This region assumes its importance because of high productivity of its ecosystems, concentration of population, exploitation of natural resources, development of various industries, discharge of waste effluent increasing load on harbours and above all petroleum exploration activities. This region offers plenty of scope for organic farming by virtue of its potential (OFP, 2005) while it becomes necessary due to increasing rate of resource degradation.