Nowadays,
organic farming is a good option for farmer who want to do sustainable agriculture. There are obstacles and
benefits of
organic farming. The obstacles of organic farming in Indonesia are :
- Organic fertilizers is still applied as a complementary fertilizers, beside chemical fertilizers, because of production target. Many farmer in Indonesia beliefs that organic fertilizers cannot fulfill the nutrition requirements of plants and it have slower responses from plants. Actually, there is report in America, that the effects of organic fertilizers for about 14 tons a year on every area unit for eight years are still exist for fourty years after the last application.
- Biological pest control is still considered expensive and ineffective by common farmers.
- Unisolated organic farming area from conventional farming, makes organic farming very fragile from pests.
- Production yields are still below the conventional farming yields.
- Organic products are considered expensive.
- Lack of information about organic farming.
- There are no strict policies from goverment to support organic farming.
The benefits of organic farming are :
- Increase the immunity of plants from attack of some plant intruder organisms.
- Increase antagonist microorganisms activity.
- Prevent erosion.
- Improve tastes of agricultural products.
- Increase nutrition contents.
- Improve fruit's texture.
- Increase storage time.