**3.3 Labor requirement**

142 Management of Organic Waste

Chemical based conventional systems of agricultural production have created many sources of pollution that either directly or in indirectly contribute to degradation of the environment and destruction of our natural resource - base. In this situation organic waste could be utilized both for the control of plant parasitic nematodes and other plants pathogenic diseases and improvement of soils and maintenance of a productive environment**.** For sustainability of agriculture in the developing economies, farmers should divorce themselves from the synthetic pesticides strategy for phyto-parasitic nematode management and marry the phytochemical option which is non-toxic to man and its environment. Most of these plants are richly available, biodegradable and affordable to the peasant farmers in

**3. Challenges and prospects in the utilization of organic wastes for the** 

initial fear of the unknown, dosage labour requirement and financial constraints

The deployment of organic materials for the management of phyto-parasitic nematodes in modern day agriculture is pregnant with several challenges. These include among others

The adoption of any new farming technology is often received by farmers with a lot of skeptism because of fear of the implications of the new technology on the productivity of their crops. Thus, adoption of such technologies is often slow until when fully convinced of its advantages over the traditional systems. Experience has shown that the transition from conventional agriculture to nature farming or organic farming can involve certain risks, such as initial lower yields and increased pest problems (James, 1994). However, once the transition period is over, which might take several years, most farmers find their new farming systems to be stable, productive, manageable, and profitable. In this case, the use of organic wastes will be beneficial through abundance of beneficial micro-organisms (characteristic of organically amended soils) which can fix atmospheric nitrogen, decompose organic wastes and residues, detoxify pesticides, suppress plant diseases and soil-borne pathogens, enhance nutrient cycling and produce bioactive compounds such as vitamins hormones and enzymes that stimulate plant growth (Higa, 1995). Besides, amendments may increase soil populations of micro-organisms antagonistic to nematodes, but are also known to release several toxic compounds during their decomposition in soil that act directly by poisoning the phyto-parasitic nematodes (Oka

The quantities of organic wastes usually required per unit area are large.This poses problems of acquisition transportation and application particularly in large scale farms. Fortunately, in Nigeria and other developing countries, these wastes are in abundance. Large quantities of refuse dump sites, rice and other cereal straws, industrial wastes such as saw dust, rice husk, by-products of breweries, agro-processing plants etc abound. Concerted efforts by governments, organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), research centers etc. are needed to mobilize these resources for use either directly or transformed into

the developing world.

**3.1 Fear of the unknown** 

and Pivonia, 2002).

**3.2 Dosage/Application rate** 

**management of phyto-parasitic nematodes** 

Traditionally organic farming is labor and knowledge – intensive whereas conventional farming is capital intensive, requiring more energy and manufactured inputs (Halberg, 2006). This, however, is not a serious drawback in most developing economies .There is abundance of idle labour which can be readily deployed to the movement and application of these wastes to work in farms thereby mitigating the myriad of social ills that is often associated with such idle minds.
