Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Issues of organic farming/R.P. Dhir. 2. Organic farming and its relevance in India/P.K. Chhonkar. 3. Relevance of organic crop production in present scenario of increasing prices of energy and depleting Nutrients Reserve/Praveen Kumar. 4. Challenges before biofertilizer industry: role for government and private sector/R.K. Tewatia and S.P.S. Tanwar. 5. Residue management and composting/J.C. Tarafdar and B.K. Yadav. 6. Soil biological approaches for sustainable agriculture/A.V. Rao. 7. Bio-inoculants in agriculture/B.G. Deshmukh and K.P. Tripathi. 8. Managing soil health in the arid regions/S.K. Singh and Mahesh Kumar. 9. Role of tree litter in organic farming/G. Singh and N. Bala. 10. Role of Arbuscular Mycorrhiza in dryland agriculture/R.S. Yadav, J. Panwar, J.C. Tarafdar, B.K. Yadav and Sushma Dave. 11. Ley Farming: a sustainable tool to organic agriculture in Drylands/K.P. Tripathi. 12. Organic farming for medicinal and aromatic plants/O.P. Aishwath and J.C. Tarafdar. 13. Diversity and potentials of soil fauna in recycling of organic matter/G. Tripathi. 14. Organic amendments and bio-control agents for plant disease management/Satish Lodha. 15. Biological pest management through Neem based organic farming/Satya Vir. 16. Organic farming for Nematode control/R.K. Kaul and Poonam Joshi. 17. Organic farming and management of salt affected soils/B.M. Sharma. 18. Low Input agriculture vis-a-vis organic farming in North Eastern Hill Region/Arvind K. Rai, Amish K. Sureja, Dharmendra Singh and Rakesh Bhardwaj. 19. Agroforestry vis-a-vis organic farming/J.C. Dagar and Gurbachan Singh. 20. Organic certification: minimum pre-requisites as NPOP/Manish Pande and Poonam Pande. 21. Socio-economic impact of waste management/K.P. Tripathi and Mahesh Kumar. 22. Organic based traditional practices for sustainable management of arid soils under different farming systems/D.C. Joshi and T.K. Bhati. 23. Farmers' perception for organic agriculture in Drylands/S.P. Pandey, M.C. Bohra, K.K. Bora, R.S. Chawra, J.M. Bora and B.K. Dwivedi. 24. Organic movement: a commendable effort by Navdanya/Vandana Shiva. 25. Future prospects of organic farming/J.C. Tarafdar, K.P. Tripathi and Mahesh Kumar. Author index.

"To achieve sustainable cropping enterprise, maintenance of soil and environmental health is of fundamental importance. Conservation of natural resource hence assumes greater significance due to large-scale deterioration of the resources for crop production. The purpose of this book is to draw attention to health of the soil; to indicate some of the consequences of this; to suggest methodology by which the lost fertility could be restored and to enlist research findings to utilize in making farm products as well as farm resources free from chemical pollution. This book provides an overall review of different tools for organic agriculture followed by discussions on sustainability. It covers the chapters on old and traditional tools of organic farming such as ley farming, crop sequencing, agroforestry options etc. with latest reviews on them. Modern tools for organic farming such as biofertilizers, composting, biopesticides and residue management are discussed in detail. Socio-economic implications and farmers' perceptions of organic farming practices are also explained with a focus on ecological health. The possibilities of knowledge exchange in organic agriculture are evaluated and it is assessed how a large-scale conversion to organic agriculture would impact on food security. The information contained in this book would prove very useful to the researchers, teachers, students and environmentalists engaged in ecofriendly sustainable agriculture."