Nation Building
An important component of the core activities of SafeU would be that of nation building, i.e. making active and positive contribution towards the various government schemes (whether those of the central or the state governments) dedicated to Sustainability in general and Sustainable Agriculture in particular.
The commitments made by our honourable Prime Minister in various international forums over the last few years, in the domain of Sustainability and Climate Change, have resulted in some specific schemes introduced by the Government of India, like:
- Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources (GOBARdhan) Scheme – aimed at reducing India’s annual fertilizer subsidy (more than Rs. 2 lakh crore). GOBARdhan Scheme has been established for collection of biomass and distribution of Bio-Manure for promoting Circular Economy.
- Pradhan Mantri Program for Restoration, Awareness, Nourishment and Amelioration of Mother Earth (PM-PRANAM) – this scheme is aimed to promote alternative fertilizers and balanced use of chemical fertilizers.
- Setting up 10,000 Bharatiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-Input Resource Centres (BPKBRC) over next 3 years for natural farming. These centres would be instrumental in promoting Paramparagat Krishi so as to reduce annual fertilizer subsidy.
- Atmanirbhar Clean Plant Program to boost availability of high-quality planting material (seeds) for high-value horticulture crops.
In order to attain our national objective of building Viksit Bharat by 2047, SafeU has designed various programmes that attend the core objectives of the above schemes in a most efficient way.
These programmes of SafeU may be enumerated as follows:
- Methane Emission Mitigation Program
- Reclamation Program for degraded soils
- Circular Bio-Economy Program
Methane Emission Mitigation Program
We are plagued by significant amount of agro-wastes generated from food & cash crops abundantly grown on India’s most fertile agricultural lands. Most of these agro-wastes remain unidentified and undiagnosed in terms of their potential as significant Methane emitters; and are dumped as landfill without any proper treatment whatsoever. Organic wastes, which do not have any viable commercial utilization and hence used as landfill, are categorized as environmentally hazardous – if they emit more greenhouse gases (GHG) than their own unit mass. Coir Pith is a prime example of such an organic waste, emitting upto 6.010 mtCO2e of GHG (primarily Methane) per ton of its own weight! Apart from emitting GHG, as indicated above, when left as untreated landfill material; this light-weight Coir Pith causes other hazards as well:
- Gets blown away by wind, causing air pollution.
- Gets washed away by water, negatively affecting underwater ecosystems.
- Gets introduced, at varying degrees of its natural decomposition, into the soil system resulting in marked deterioration in the productivity of such soils.
On the other hand, Methane is the most dreaded GHG because:
- It has a 20-year Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 81 and an Atmospheric Lifetime of 12 years
- It disintegrates in the atmosphere, thereby releasing CO2 & Water Vapour (both being potent GHGs)
- It is a precursor of tropospheric Ozone (hazardous to all terrestrial life forms)
SafeU has developed validated models to convert this hazardous waste to wealth (most efficient organic compost) for our primary sector! Undoubtedly, these are some of the best models for Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources (which are otherwise hazardous) to yield wealth (dhan) for our farmers!
Reclamation Program For Degraded Soils
Out of India’s Total Geographical Area (TGA) of 328.72 million hectares, officially about 29.7% (i.e. 97.85 million hectares) is degraded. However, the practical reality might just be grimmer! With uncontrolled usage of artificial fertilizers and synthetic pesticides over the last 6-7 decades, our agricultural lands have depleted in their fertility even to the extent of being degraded. Quite understandably, this is creating enormous pressure on food security of our ever-burgeoning population. Hence, rejuvenation and/or reclamation of degraded agricultural soils is of utmost importance to us.
Our honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, delivered a keynote address at the UN “High-Level Dialogue on Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought” on 14Jun2021, at the 14th Session of the Conference of Parties of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The Prime Minister duly emphasised on the following aspects:
- Restoration of 26 million hectares of degraded land aimed by 2030 to achieve an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
- India is on track to achieve its national commitment of Land Degradation Neutrality.
- It is our sacred duty to leave a healthy planet for our future generations.
In order to fulfil this vision, and for any successful reclamation of depleted or degraded soils, what ultimately is needed is to increase the self-generated microbial life in our soils (especially those used for agriculture) that we have lost due to indiscriminate usage of artificial fertilizers and synthetic pesticides.
SafeU has developed numerous models for effective amelioration of Mother Earth (thereby meeting the objectives of the PM-PRANAM scheme of GoI) through the most efficient bio-conversion of organic wastes – containing the highest amount of self-generated microbial life forms per unit volume vis-à-vis any other compost – using the Novcom Composting Technology of IORF.
Circular Bio-Economy Program
Circular Economy has become the buzzword nowadays; however, effective models in this domain (especially those catering to the primary sector of the economy) are too few and far between. More often than not it is found that the source and the end point of such models fail to circumscribe the events in between.
However, the various interventional models designed by SafeU (like CFNZ, Waste-to-wealth etc.) encompass the entire life-cycles of their component, like:
- Bio-conversion of the wastage from coconuts (i.e. Coir Pith) through Novcom Composting, leading to the most efficient compost that is used to improve the productivity of coconuts (the most important cash crop of the farmers of our 4 southern states).
- Developing Clean Seeds (or planting materials) from the Clean Food Net Zero programmes, that are so essential for future propagation of such Clean Crops.
Regenerative, Climate-Positive Sustainable Organic Agriculture is at the core of all the models developed by SafeU, based on the path-breaking IRF Technology of its parental organization – IORF, that ensures the true circularity of our Circular Bio-Economy models!
SafeU Sustainability & Agri-Net-Zero Pathways is a pioneering entity that can deliver scientifically validated, practically demonstrated and academically acclaimed business models of Agri-Net-Zero that can attend 7 most critical SDGs (1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 13 & 15) through single-point interventions – that we customize for our clients, enabling them to attain their strategic objectives of ESG, CSR, Sustainability, De-carbonization, Carbon Offsetting and Net Zero.