In Section 6.2, compost and its advantages and disadvantages have been explained. In organic farming, mobilization of biomass and its enrichment plays an important role in optimizing production. With the advent of chemical fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, techniques of sourcing and enriching the biomass have been grossly neglected. Several new techniques of composting have evolved in recent years. Many industrial waste products – from sugar and coir industries, food and fruits processing units, urban garbage, and so on – are not used as manures to the optimum extent. Also, their potential as a rich source of manure is not being utilized judiciously. Therefore, there is a need for adopting different composting techniques suitable for different biomass. Some methods of composting are explained briefly in this chapter.

The Indore Method

Perhaps this was the first attempt of scientific composting in the country developed by Sir Albert Howard (1935; 36) between 1924 to 1931. Ever since he came to India in 1905, as Economic Botanist of the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa, he was deeply concerned about the fertility of the soil, health of the people and resistance of crops to pest and diseases. He thought that the impoverished soil produced weak crops susceptible to pests and diseases. He observed that improved varieties could increase yield only up to 10 per cent in the soil with no humus, but in the fertile soil with a lot of humus, it produced double the yield.