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Natural Farming
Context:
In the 2024-25 Budget, the Finance Minister announced a plan to introduce one crore farmers to natural farming over the next two years, supported by certification and branding.
Natural Farming:
- It excludes all synthetic chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
- It promotes traditional practices such as:
- On-farm biomass recycling, cow dung-urine formulations, botanical concoctions, and pest management through biodiversity.
- Agro-Ecological Integration: This diversified farming system integrates crops, trees, and livestock, aiming to improve natural nutrient cycling and increase soil organic matter.
Benefits of Natural Farming:
- Enhanced Yields: Farmers using Natural Farming often report yields comparable to or sometimes higher than those from conventional methods.
- Improved Health: Natural farming eliminates health risks by avoiding synthetic chemicals, resulting in food with greater nutritional value and health benefits.
- Environmental Conservation: It promotes better soil health, increased agro-biodiversity, and more efficient water use, while minimising carbon and nitrogen footprints.
- Increased Farmer Income: It boosts farmers’ incomes by providing additional revenue from intercropping, reducing costs, lowering risks, and maintaining yields.
- Employment Generation: It generates employment on account of natural farming input enterprises, value addition, marketing in local areas, etc.
- The surplus from natural farming is invested back in the village itself.
Challenges and Concerns:
- The potential reduction in crop yields, making it difficult for natural farming to meet the food demands of India’s large population.
- National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIE) published ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF): Implications for Sustainability, Profitability, and Food Security.
- It highlighted the huge disparity in outcomes of two different ZBNF experiments (now renamed Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati).
- A study by Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) and Institute for Development Studies, Andhra Pradesh, found that using lower-cost biological inputs under ZBNF improved crop yields and increased farmers’ incomes.
- The study suggested that natural farming could enhance food and nutritional security for farmers.
- However, the study by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research (IIFSR) reported significant yield reductions.
- A 59% decline in wheat yields and a 32% decline in basmati rice yields compared to integrated crop management.
- These findings indicated potential adverse impacts on food supply if natural farming were adopted on a large scale.
- Rigorous scientific studies are needed to assess the yield potential and sustainability of natural farming before nationwide implementation.
- Local vs Large-Scale Application: While natural farming may be beneficial locally, it may not be viable on a large scale without risking national food security.
- Limited market: Farmers practising natural farming struggle to get premium prices due to a lack of differentiated markets, standards, and protocols.
- The absence of certification and standardisation makes it difficult to differentiate natural farming from organic or conventional methods.
- Initiatives like the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) are there, they often involve lengthy processes detering farmers from obtaining certification.
Government Initiatives for Promoting Natural Farming:
- Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY)
- Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region (MOVCDNER)
- Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP)
- National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF)
- National Project on Organic farming (NPOF), etc.
The Way Forward:
- NABARD and ICRIE suggest that extensive scientific studies are crucial to assess the yield potential and sustainability of natural farming.
- These studies should address the varying outcomes from different experiments to provide a clearer picture of natural farming’s viability.
- Niti Aayog’s Task Force Report 2023 recommends that innovative mechanisms should be implemented to require fertiliser sellers and manufacturers to offer both inorganic and organic fertilisers in a specified ratio.
National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF)
- The government has launched the NMNF as an independent scheme from 2023-24 by scaling up the Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP).
- The scheme is for the duration of 2023 to 2026.
- Vision: To implement self-sustaining natural farming systems to reduce cultivation costs, increase farmers’ income, and ensure resource conservation, healthy soils, environment, and food.
- Objective: To motivate farmers to adopt chemical-free farming through the system’s merits, requiring behavioural changes towards using cow-based, locally-produced inputs.
- The NMNF has a total budget outlay of ₹4,645.69 crore for six years.
- It will initiate 1 crore farmers into natural farming, supported by certification & branding, implemented by scientific institutions & gram panchayats
- Establishing 10,000 bio-input resource centres is also part of the mission.
Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Scheme:
- It is a sub scheme of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) from 2020-21 for the promotion of traditional indigenous practices, falling within the umbrella of National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA).
- Under the scheme the financial assistance of Rs. 12,200/ha. were provided for 3 years.
- Given the government’s vision to promote natural farming as a mass movement, the BPKP is being up-scaled and renamed the “National Mission for Natural Farming.”