Kolkata, Nov 21 (UNI) Organic farming provides a high premium for the farmers' produce
with low capital investment and the ability to use traditional knowledge.
Going Organic will benefit us and our nature. NATCO Trust, a non-profit organisation
based in Hyderabad, is empowering thousands of farmers in going Organic. Organic
farmers seeing benefits for themselves, for the soil and for the environment.
In developing countries like ours, where 3/4th of people below the poverty line live in
rural areas and where more than 80 per cent of rural people live in households that are
involved in agriculture, improving poor farmers' livelihoods is central for addressing rural development. In recent times, organic farming has increasingly gained attention as a
way to manage natural resources in a more sustainable way and to raise incomes
especially of smallholder farms, according to NATCO Trust.
“Our agricultural and farming systems need to be reinvented to cater to the changing
times. Many of our farmers are underpaid, malnourished, are frequently using chemicals
that harm their health, and rely on practices that seriously degrade their land. Not only
this, the food that they are producing is often coated in harmful chemicals, has little taste
and is low in essential nutrients,” a NATCO Trust spokesperson said.
Organic farming normally does not involve capital investment as high as that required
in chemical farming. Furthermore, since organic fertilizers and pesticides can be produced
locally, the yearly costs incurred by the farmer are also low.
Organic food is normally priced 20-30 per cent higher than conventional food. This
premium is very important for a small farmer whose income might only be sufficient to
feed his/her family with one meal.
Vaccines protect against more than 25 debilitating diseases, including measles, tetanus, 
meningitis, and typhoid, and every disease that is prevented by vaccination is an 
antimicrobial medicine avoided.
More than 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are acquired every day 
worldwide.
When used correctly and consistently, condoms offer one of the most effective
methods of protection against STIs, including HIV and gonorrhea, both of which 
are showing alarming levels of resistance to treatment globally.
Food can become contaminated at any point during slaughtering or harvesting, 
processing, storage, distribution, transportation and preparation.
Inadequate food hygiene can lead to potentially fatal foodborne diseases and 
death. Improved education in the safe handling of food is a key measure in 
preventing these diseases as well as in containing the spread of antimicrobial 
resistance.
Effective infection, prevention and control (IPC), including hand hygiene, is the 
cornerstone of high-quality health care and one of the most effective ways of 
reducing the spread of antibiotic resistant organisms.
This is particularly true in health-care settings, where vulnerable and sick patients 
are more susceptible to developing drug resistant infections. Every infection 
prevented through handwashing is a medicine avoided and the threat of resistance 
reduced.
Sanitation is a basic component of good healthcare. Despite this, levels of global 
sanitation are inconsistent. Poor sanitation is linked to transmission of diseases such 
as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery and hepatitis A and it puts at risk the overall safety 
of patients. It can also exacerbate the spread of antimicrobial-resistant infections.

Lack of clean water further compromises sanitation levels. Open defecation, the discharge 
of untreated wastewater, and leakage from on-site sanitation systems at health-care 
facilities can all lead to the release of antibiotics, of resistant pathogens and of resistance 
genes into environmental reservoirs, thereby increasing levels of antimicrobial resistance.
Residues from antimicrobial manufacturing must also be carefully handled to mitigate 
the risks of polluting the environment and releasing dangerous levels of antimicrobials 
into the ecosystem.
Although AMR is a natural part of evolution, the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in 
people and animals, often without any professional oversight, is accelerating this process.
Misuse includes people taking antibiotics for viral infections like colds and flu and 
healthy animals being given antimicrobials to promote growth or to prevent disease.
$100 trillion USD of economic output is at risk due to the rise of drug resistant infections.
Drug resistance continues to present a public health crisis for many long-term 
disease-specific treatment regimes, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV and sexually 
transmitted infections, in particular gonorrhoea.
WHO continues to monitor the situation carefully, issuing rapid changes to treatment 
guidelines and recommendations whenever needed to respond to resistance trends.
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