28-Mar-2023: National Mission on Natural Farming
To motivate farmers to adopt chemical free farming and enhance the reach of natural farming, the Government has formulated National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) as a separate and independent scheme from 2023-24 by up scaling the Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddati (BPKP). The success of NMNF will require behavioral change in farmers to shift from chemical based inputs to cow based locally produced inputs and thus requires continuous creation of awareness, training, handholding and capacity building of farmers in the initial years. The provision of Rs 459.00 crores for 2023-24 has been proposed after careful consideration and the requirement of increase of budget is not anticipated at this stage.
The budget for fertilizer subsidy for 2023-24 has been kept at Rs 1,75,099 crore.
Natural Farming is a way of chemical free farming based on desi cow and locally available resources, with no chemical fertilizers and pesticides and promotes traditional indigenous practices which give freedom to farmers from externally purchased inputs and is largely based on on-farm biomass recycling with major stress on biomass mulching, use of on-farm desi cow dung-urine formulation; managing pests through diversity, on-farm botanical concoctions and exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs directly or indirectly and emphasis is given on improving natural nutrient cycling and increase in organic matter in the soil, which can help with climate change resilience and carbon sequestration in soils.
“National Standard of Organic Production (NSOP) has defined organic agriculture as “a system of farm design and management to create an ecosystem which can achieve sustainable productivity without use of artificial off farm input such as chemical fertilizer and pesticides. Organic farming is considered to be climate friendly farming practices promoting low external input usage, recycling, reuse and reduced use of synthetics in farming. Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) under its All India Network Programme on Organic Farming has developed package of practices for organic production in cropping and farming systems mode.
Climate smart agriculture is a broader concept which includes all environments friendly agricultural approaches like integrated farming systems, conservation agriculture, natural farming, organic farming, precision agriculture, regenerative agriculture, reclamation of degraded soils and reduced food loss and waste to achieve sustainable agriculture. Climate smart agriculture is an integrated approach to managing landscapes-cropland, livestock, forests and fisheries-that address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change. It aims to tackle three main objectives: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes, adapting and building resilience to climate change and reducing greenhouses gas emissions wherever possible and supports FAO strategic framework 2022-2031.
To make global consensus on a broader concept, Government has opted climate smart agriculture rather than natural and organic farming in its priorities for G20 agriculture working group.
14-Mar-2023: Promotion Of Natural Farming
In order to involve more farmers and enhance the reach of natural farming on a larger scale, Government has formulated Natural Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) by up-scaling the Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP) to promote natural farming across the country. NMNF will cover 7.5 lakh ha area by developing 15,000 clusters in next 4 years with total budget outlay of Rs. 1584 crore (GoI Share). With NMNF Government proposes to touch 1 crore farmers along the Ganga belt and in other rainfed parts of the country. For making easy access to bio- resources like Jeevamrit, Ghana Jeevamrit, neemastra etc., Government intends to set up 15,000 Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-inputs Resources Centres (BRCs).
In order to provide farmers adopting natural farming an easy access to bio resources like Jeevaamrit, Ghana Jeevamrit, neemastra etc. wherein cow dung and urine, neem and bio culture play an important role, Government intends to set up Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-inputs Resources Centres (BRCs) to prepare and supply bio-inputs to facilitate the adoption of natural farming without individual farmers having to prepare them on their own, as preparation of bio-inputs is a time taking and labour- intensive activity. These bio-inputs resources centres would be set up alongside 15000 model clusters of natural farming 50 ha each. These BRCs would create a national level distributed micro fertilizers and pesticides manufacturing network @ 1 BRC per 50 ha clusters during the period from 2022-23 to 2025-26.
Department of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare (DA&FW) is undertaking large scale training of Master Trainers, Champion Farmers and practicing farmers on techniques of Natural Farming through National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) and National Center of Organic and Natural Farming (NCONF). MANAGE has also sensitized the public representative like Gram-Pradhan on the technique and benefits of Natural Farming. Study material on 22 regional languages has been prepared, 697 Master Trainers have been developed on natural farming and 997 training were conducted on natural farming for 56952 Gram Pradhans through MANAGE. In addition, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has initiated research in 20 locations to validate natural farming techniques besides demonstrating in 425 KVKs to showcase the benefits of natural farming.
A Digital web portal (naturalfarming.dac.gov.in) has been launched for promotion of natural farming to display information about implementation framework, resources, implementation progress, farmer’s registration, blog etc.