Agricultural Waste or Wonder
Kavita Rambal
Department of Botany, Maharishi Dayanand College of Arts, Science & Commerce. Parel, Mumbai-400012 (India) Kavita.rambal@rediffmail.com
ABSTRACT
India is an agricultural country and its economy is dependent on agriculture. Advances in agricultural sciences, the green, golden and white revolution resulted in increase in the food production. India became self-sufficient and also started export of food and fruit. As a result of technological advancement along with the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, India at present is capable of food production in huge quantities, so much so, we fall short of go downs now infrastructure for the same is being provided by the government. We have become self-sufficient at the cost of environmental pollution. One of the reasons being agricultural wastes which are generated as a result of agricultural operations. It is estimated that annually 600 million tons of agricultural waste is being produced which at places is being burnt, resulting in poor quality of air, agricultural wash off getting dumped into water bodies resulting in water pollution. Due to monoculture most of the soil is getting depleted of some of the essential nutrients. Besides the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides the soil is getting polluted. Is this way in real sense a waste or wonder ? As it can be reconverted into various useful products without harming the environment. In the present paper various ways to convert this waste into useful products without harming the environment will be discussed.