Patanjali Organic Kranti (An Action Plan for Skill Development and Increasing Farmer's Income through Organic Farming)

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Acharya Balkrishna, Vice-Chancellor at University of Patanjali, is san ascetic entrepreneur with a versatile personality. who holds expert knowledge of Yoga, Ayurveda, Sanskrit language, Indian holy scriptures, and the Vedas. After dedicating his life to the revival of ancient healing & lifestyle traditions, Acharya Balkrishna ji has become a great source of inspiration for Traditional Medicinal Practitioners. His maverick leadership, as Chairman & MD Patanjali Ayurveda Ltd., and relentless efforts in Yoga and Ayurvedic scientific research has acquired much-deserved awards such as Ayurveda Expert, "Manav Ratan', 'Bharat Gaurav, "Ten Versatile and Dynamic Young Men of India' and 'UNSDG 10 Most Influential People in Healthcare Award' to name a few.

From a very early age, Acharya Balkrishna has been pursuing his passion for plants and herbs., He is the most renowned and respected ayurveda practitioner and herbal expert. He has explored and discovered several rare plants such as Sanjeevani, 'Soma, 'Swarnakshiri", "Swarnadraka' and extinct 'Astavarga' for the formulations of new herbal drugs. He has taken many initiatives for Biodiversity conservation. He is currently engaged in the establishment of Patanjali herbal garden & herbarium, compilation of a unique multi-voluminous manuscript project called 'World Herbal Encyclopaedia, "Wealth of Food Crops and identification of rare herbs & vegetation across the India.

Since the ancient age. India has engaged in the organic farming practice with negligible use of chemical inputs. However, to maintain food security for a large population, the Government of India had started a "Green Revolution program in the 1960s, which resulted from a rise in the use of chemical fertilizers to boost agricultural yields which exerted negative impacts on soil and consumer health. To avoid the use of chemical fertilizers both developed as well as developing countries are moving toward organic farming and organic food products. This has improved India's organic food exports as well as the income of farmers by adopting organic farming practices. The Government of India has promoted organic agricultural practices through a number of programs that deal with the study of changes in crop production, soil health, and the adoption of scientific techniques in organic farming practices.

The Humans depend more on agricultural products than anything else for its survival. India's farming practices over the past years have become increasingly unsustainable. Without much regard for the environment or human/animal health, the system is focused on high productivity. The adverse affect include problems like soil infertility, soil erosion, soil toxicity, underground water pollution, diminishing water resources, increase in annual GHG emissions leading to global warming; and presence of fertilizer/pesticides residues in the food chain. Now a days, people are concentrating on sustainable agriculture based on technologies that combine enhanced productivity with improved environmental protection. Moreover, food safety has emerged as a key concern for customers. Farmers need to be motivated and inspired to adopt correct, optimal, and sustainable methods of farming.

Arapid increase in per capita use of food resources has created pressure to adopt modern agriculture, putting more strain on natural resources (Rands et al., 2010: Varma et al. 2015: Patel et al., 2019). With the advent of the green revolution in the twentieth century, the agriculture sector has undergone a drastic change by the indiscriminate use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides which has caused severe detrimental effects on our environment. These included overall degradation of the fragile ecosystem due to the application of intensive agricultural techniques (Rahman, 2015): problems like diminishing water resources, soil erosion, soil infertility, soil toxicity, and underground water pollution (Pimentel 1996: Singh, 2000); up to 20% increase in annual greenhouse gases emissions (Lemke et al, 2007) leading to global warming: and presence of residues of fertilizer and pesticides like nitrates, organophosphates, organochlorines, carbamates, etc. in the food chain by biomagnification pose severe health threats to humans and animals.