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Indian Farmer 3(12):850-853; December-2016 Shinogi
et al
850 | P a g e
1Shinogi KC, 1Sanjay Srivastava, 2Rashmi I, 3Radha TK, 4Rosin KG and 4Sarvendra
Kumar
1ICAR- Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh; 2ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and
Water Conservation Regional Station, Kota, Rajasthan; 3ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural
Research, Bengaluru, Karnataka; 4ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi
Corresponding Author email:shinojikallely@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Homa organic farming is becoming
popular in India and abroad as a farming
method to enhance crop production
without any external input use. The
farming method that mainly focused on
the homa fire technique Agnihotra and use
of the Agnihotra ash is also said to have
beneficial effects in controlling the pest
and disease infestation in the crop fields.
There were several scientific efforts for the
scientific validation of Homa organic
farming methodologies. Some of the
studies reported that the Agnihotra fumes
are powerful to eradicate harmful
microorganisms because of the formation
of ethelene oxide and formaldehyde.
Further, the Agnihotra ash is reported to
have a beneficial effect on the beneficial
soil microbial flora.
INTRODUCTION
India has ancient wisdom of farming and
Vedic literature offers evidences for that.
Hymns of Rigveda have mentions about
ploughing, fallowing, irrigation,
cultivation of crops, and celebration of
agricultural divinities. In the early period
agriculture was purely organic in India.
With the boom of green revolution in
1960’s, organic agriculture has changed
into chemical intensive highly productive
systems. In such agricultural practices
the quantity as well as frequency of
chemical use has been increasing in every
cropping season, which leads to
deterioration of natural resources and
hampering of ecological equilibrium. The
call for going ‘Back to Nature’ has become
a universal syndrome in the recent years
and a lot of nature friendly farming
methods emerged in reaction to this.
Homa Organic Farming is just one among
those developments that incorporate
Homa therapy to organic agriculture.
Homa is a Sanskrit word synonymous to
yajna is an ancient pyramid fire
technique from Vedic period. It is the
process of removing the toxic conditions
of the atmosphere through the agency of
fire. Though we have lost this knowledge
in the course of time Param Sadguru
Shree Gajanan Maharaj of Akkalkot,
Maharashtra renewed the technique in
the middle of 20th century and his
disciple Vasant Paranjpe popularised it in
India and abroad. Homa firing technique
Homa Organic Farming: Science behind
Concepts and Methodologies
Indian Farmer 3(12):850-853; December-2016 Shinogi
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is generally known as Agnihotra. It was
first publicly demonstrated in Poland by
Vasant Paranjpe and Dr. Ulrich Berk, the
Founder of German Association of Homa
Therapy in the year
1981(www.homatherapy.org). The
central idea of Homa therapy is “you heal
the atmosphere and the healed
atmosphere heals you”. Though it is an
age old practice that evolved much before
scientific era, popularisers of Homa
therapy argue that it is a totally revealed
science.
HOMA ORGANIC FARMING: MAJOR
CONCEPTS
Homa organic farming is believed to be
the revised version of vriksha ayurveda
(ayurveda for the plant kingdom) in the
modern context. Experts say that it is a
scientific method which emphasise on
fumigation of the atmosphere, an
important factor to keep the crop healthy
from ailments. Agnihotra is the basic
technique practiced in Homa organic
farming where dried cow dung, ghee
(clarified unsalted butter) of local cow
and unpolished brown rice are burned in
an inverted pyramid shaped copper
vessel along with singing of special
mantras. Agnihotra is tuned to the
biorhythm of sunrise and sunset and is
performed during these periods of a day.
It is believed that the mantras sung in
resonance with a bio-rhythm activate
special vibrations which produce a
particular healing atmosphere. Ghee is
treated as the vehicle Shri. Vasant
Paranjpe described the beneficial effects
of Agnihotra to the soil and plant systems
in his book HOMA Therapy-Our last
Chance. He claims that Homa atmosphere
boost the soil quality through improved
water holding capacity, nutrient
availability, and soil texture. He also
stress that the Homa atmosphere speeds
up the plant metabolism by enhancing
the chlorophyll production and
permeability of the vascular system.
Homa ecosystem is said to be balanced in
the case of number of pests and beneficial
insects. However, Homa preparations like
Agnihotra ash powder and Agnihotra ash
solution may be used sometimes to
control serious pest and disease attack.
Another famous Homa organic farming
input is Gloria Biosol, a liquid bio-
fertilizer based on Agnihotra ash
prepared under anaerobic conditions in a
bio-digester. Biosol was developed by
Gloria Guzman Mendez in Peru, South
America. It was prepared out of
vermicompost, fresh cow dung, cow
urine, Agnihotra ash, copper shree yantra
disc (a source of energy attractor) and
water. This preparation is mainly used to
rejuvenate the plants and also to enhance
plant growth by controlling pest and
diseases.
SCIENTIFIC REASONING OF HOMA
ORGANIC FARMING
Research conducted in India showed that
fumes emanating from Agnihotra
eradicate microorganisms that cause
illness and diseases (Pachori et al, 2013).
Burning of cow dung for disinfection is an
age old practice. According to Russian
scientist Sirovish, cow’s ghee also has
immense power to protect human body
from the ill effect of radioactive waves. It
is also reported that when cow’s ghee is
burned with rice it produces gases like
ethylene oxide, propylene oxide,
formaldehyde, and beta-propiolactone
which have inhibitory effect on
Indian Farmer 3(12):850-853; December-2016 Shinogi
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microorganisms (Mondkar, 1982; Potdar,
1992). Ethylene oxide and formaldehyde
are the two gases used to sterilize the
medical and pharmaceutical products
because of their efficiency in killing
viruses, bacteria and fungi etc. Propylene
oxide is best known for inducing artificial
rain when mixed with silver oxide.
Therefore, yajna done with cow ghee
believed to be a good practice to purify
atmosphere and induces rain.
With each Agnihotra that is performed
highly energised ash is produced and this
Agnihotra ash is known to be the secret
weapon of the homa organic farming.
Agnihotra ash is beneficial at all stages of
farming operations like soil treatment,
water treatment, seed treatment.
However, the basic intercultural
operations and composting are also
necessary along with the application of
Agnihotra ash. There are a number of
research reports about the beneficial
effect of Agnihotra ash. Kratz and Schnug
(2007) reported that Agnihotra ash
improved the solubility of phosphorus in
soil. Their experiment showed a 10 times
higher water extractable P in soils
treated with Agnihotra ash than
untreated soil. Berde et al, (2015)
observed that addition of Agnihotra ash
increased the soil bacterial flora,
including nitrogen fixers and phosphate
solubilizers and reduced fungal flora. The
healthy microflora created in the soil also
improves the number of beneficial soil
creatures like earthworms. The
earthworms eat the dead organic matter
in the soil, digest, excrete and again
replenish the soil. Study carried out in
the University of Agricultural Sciences
Dharwad (Namrata et al., 2012) showed
that soybean crop was benefited with
Homa organic farming practices like
application of Agnihotra ash and biosol
compared to conventional agriculture
practices. They have reported that the
amount of available nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium, copper, zinc,
manganese and iron in the soil of Homa
organic farming treatment plots were
more than that of conventional plots.
Further, the Homa organic farming plots
showed a high dehydrogenase activity
also compared to conventional. These
results indicate the improvement in soil
health because of Homa organic farming.
CONCLUSION
Homa organic farming is reported to be
cost effective and environment friendly
among all other farming approaches. The
science behind the Homa organic farming
is also based on sound footing. Though
there are some research data to show the
claimed benefits, it is recommended that
this may be tested as multi location trials
so that the practice may be
recommended as a technology.
REFERENCES
Berde, C., Kulkarni, A., Potphode, A.,
Gaikwad, A. and Gaikwad, S. 2015.
Application of Agnihotra Ash for
Enhancing Soil Fertility.
Engineering and Technology
Research, 4(7): 2546- 2551.
Kratz, S. and Schnug, E. 2007. Homa
Farming - a vedic fire for
agriculture: Influence of Agnihotra
ash on water solubility of soil P.
Landbauforschung Völkenrode.
3(57): 207-211
Indian Farmer 3(12):850-853; December-2016 Shinogi
et al
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Monskar A.G. 1982. Effect of Agnihotra on
Aerial Microflora. Available:
www.homatherapy.org/
content/effect-agnihotra-aerial-
microflora
Namrata, K., Babalad, H.B. and Basarkar,
P.W. 2012. Effect of Homa organic
farming practices on soybean crop.
Organic Farming Newsletter 8(1):3-
10
Pachori, R.R., Kulkarni, N.S., Sadar, P.S.,
and Mahajan, N.N. 2013. Effect of
agnihotra fumes on aoromicroflora.
The Bioscan 8(1):127-129.
Paranjpe, V.V.1989. In: Kratz, S. and
Schnug, E. 2007. Homa Farming - a
vedic fire for agriculture: Influence
of Agnihotra ash on water
solubility of soil P.
Landbauforschung Völkenrode.
3(57): 207-211
Potdat, J. 1992. In: Namrata K. 2012.
Effect of homa organic farming
practices on soybean crop.
Organic farming Newsletter 8(1):
3-10