Organic Farming for Sustainable Agricultural Production

By Prof.Dillip Kumar Swain | IIT Kharagpur

Learners enrolled: 3037

Organic farming is an integrated system of agricultural production based on ecological principles, promotion of biodiversity, biological cycles and organic matter recycling to maintain and improve soil fertility and environmental sustainability. The regulations for organic crop cultivation prohibit the use of chemo-synthetic pesticides, mineral fertilizers, growth promoters and Genetically Modified Organism. Indiscriminate use of these chemicals in conventional farming poses a serious threat to the quality of produce as well as the environment. Concern about food safety and security and environmental sustainability is increasing among scientist, administrator and environmentalist. In view of this, the course is designed to train students on organic farming practices, quality analysis of the products, environmental impact assessment, health benefit of the organic food etc. After successful completion of the course, the students should be able to design resource efficient farming system for small and marginal farmers for improving their economy while meeting the quality food demand in a sustainable environment.

INTENDED AUDIENCE:Undergraduates and Post graduates in Agricultural and Food Engineering, Agricultural Science and Environmental Science
PREREQUISITES: NIL

Summary

Course Status :	Completed
Course Type :	Core
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Agricultural and Food Engineering
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Postgraduate
Start Date :	29 Jul 2019
End Date :	20 Sep 2019
Exam Date :	29 Sep 2019 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1 :  Organic Farming: Concepts and principles of organic farming
Week 2 : Key indicators of sustainable agriculture, organic farming and climate change
Week 3 : Input management; compost production, vermicomposting, Compost quality, Compost utilization and marketing
Week 4 :  Organic crop management: field crops, horticulture and plantation crops
Week 5 :  Plant protection measures, biopesticides, natural predators, cultural practice
Week 6 :  Rotation design for organic system,  Transition to organic agriculture, farming system
Week 7 :  Quality analysis of organic foods, Antioxidants and their natural source, organic food and human health
Week 8 : Standards of organic food and marketing

Books and references

Nil

Instructor bio

Dr. Dillip Kumar Swain is involved in teaching and research activities of the Institute, since his joining in the year 2006. Dr. Swain completed his Doctoral Degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India, which received the Fertilizer Association of India Silver Jubilee Award in 2003 for the outstanding doctoral research in Fertilizer Usage. Before joining this Institute, Dr. Swain worked as Post-Doctoral Fellow at the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan, availing Japan Society for the Promotion Science Fellowship. Dr. Swain teaches the subjects: Systems Approach in Agriculture, Soil-Plant-Water Relationships, Crop Production Systems, and Organic Food Chain Management for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Agricultural and Food Engineering. The research areas of Dr. Swain are Climate Change Adaptations/Mitigations for Crop Production, Organic Farming and Sustainable Agricultural Production, and Crop Modeling and Simulation. He is working on assessment of climate change impacts on food grain production of India and evaluation of adaptations through environmental controlled experiment and simulation analysis. Dr. Swain is also involved in outreach activities through demonstration of food production technologies in farmers’ field. Dr. Swain is actively involved in guiding M.Tech. and PhD research projects.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: 29 September 2019: Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100
Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75.

If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.
Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kharagpur. It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.
Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies are being discontinued from July 2019 semester and will not be dispatched

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