Farmers can benefit by shifting to liquid fertilisers

04 February, 2013

The Anand's Agricultural University's (AAU) liquid bio-fertilizer (LBF) is proving to be a win-win situation for many farmers in Gujarat. This is considered to be eco-friendly and safe for farmers. It has improved yields of crops, and is much cheaper than other forms of fertilizers.

Benefits of using LBF

In Gujarat, a famer has experimented trying to grow sweet potato and ginger by using the traditional chemical fertilizer. In the process, he suffered from breathing problems. Listening to his son's advice, he finally switched over to LBF, produced by Anand Agricultural University and found the results amazing. The fertility of the soil remains high with the usage of LBF. Cost wise, LBF is cheaper than the traditional chemical fertilizers. Also the health of the farmer has improved a lot with the usage of this LBF.

A spokesperson of AAU confirms that scientists succeeded in developing this LBF eco-friendly alternative in 2005 after three years of research and launched under the Anubhav brand name. LBF has a longer shelf life (at least a year) and can also be easily used in drip irrigation.

Currently, around one-lakh Gujarat farmers are using LBF. The idea is to take this to many more farmers. The technology has been transferred to three firms and AAU plans to have a 5 lakh litre production plant on the campus within a year.

Farmers' organisations in other states can help themselves with the above development by switching over to LBF, which is proving to be of immense benefit for users. Support organisations can do well to take a good note of this issue and help the farmers' community in India to go in for this technology to the extent possible by providing all sorts of support, guidance and help.