In order to promote natural farming across the nation, Government of India has launched the National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) by upscaling the Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP) scheme, sub-scheme under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVK), from 2023–24. The NMNF targets to reach one crore farmers in rainfed regions, including the Ganga belt. The mission aims to involve more farmers and enhance the reach of natural farming on a larger scale. According to agriculture minister, Narandra Singh Tomar, the mission is expected to cover 7.5 lakh hectare area by developing 15,000 clusters in the next four years with a budget outlay of Rs 1,584 crore from the Centre.
The BPKP had provided financial assistance of Rs 12,200 per hectare for a period of three years for the purpose of cluster formation, capacity building, and continuous hand-holding. Moreover, the PKVY allowed an assistance of Rs 8,800 per hectare for three years for marketing, value addition, and publicity of natural farming products.
Natural Farming, Organic Agriculture, and Climate Smart Agriculture
Natural farming is a way of chemical-free farming based on desi cow and locally available resources with no use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Natural farming promotes traditional indigenous practices which would give freedom to farmers from externally purchased inputs such as chemical fertilisers. It is largely based on on-farm biomass recycling with major stress on biomass mulching, which involves the use of on-farm desi cow dung-urine formulation. Natural farming stresses on managing pests through diversity, on-farm botanical concoctions, and exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs directly or indirectly. The emphasis is given on improving natural nutrient cycling and increase in organic matter in the soil, which could help with climate change resilience and carbon sequestration in soils.
As per the National Standard of Organic Production (NSOP), organic agriculture is ‘a system of farm design and management to create an ecosystem which could achieve sustainable productivity without use of artificial off-farm input such as chemical fertiliser and pesticides.’ Organic farming is regarded as climate-friendly farming practices which promotes low external input usage, recycling, reuse, and reduced use of synthetics in farming. The 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 broadly includes all environment-friendly agricultural approaches such as 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. It is an integrated approach to manage landscapes, livestock, forests, and fisheries that address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change. The objectives of climate smart agriculture are to obtain sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes by adapting and building resilience to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions wherever possible. Climate smart agriculture also supports FAO strategic framework 2022–31.
About the Mission
Under the mission, the farmers would receive a financial assistance of Rs 15,000 per hectare per year for three years to create on-farm input production infrastructure. This assistance is for those farmers only who will commit to natural farming and have actually taken it up. If any farmer fails or does not continue with natural farming, then the subsequent instalments shall be stopped.
A provision of Rs 459 crores for 2023–24 has been proposed for the NMNF scheme by the Centre. The budget for fertiliser subsidy for 2023–24 has been kept at Rs 1,75,099 crores.
As per the NMNF guidelines, the farmers who are willing to implement natural farming on their field would be registered as cluster member. Each cluster shall comprise 50 farmers or more than 50 hectares of land. Also, each cluster could fall in one village or spread across 2–3 nearby villages under the same Gram Panchayat.
Master Trainers for NMNF
The Centre has also launched a web portal by the name of naturalfarming.dac.gov.in. It is for the promotion of natural farming with information on the implementation framework, resources, implementation progress, farmer’s registration, blog, etc. The Ministry of Agriculture has also undertaken large-scale training of master trainers, ‘champion’ farmers, and practising farmers in the techniques of natural farming through the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (NIAEM) and National Centre of Organic and Natural Farming (NCONF). About 997 training programmes have been conducted till March 15, 2023, covering more than 56,952 gram pradhans.
Other Initiatives by the Government
The Indian government also intends to set up 15,000 Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-inputs Resources Centres (BRCs) to provide easy access to farmers to bio-resources like jeevamrit, Ghana jeevamrit, and neemastra, wherein cow dung and urine, neem, and bio-culture play an important role. Cow shelters have suggested that their units could be designated as BRCs as they form the backbone of the value chain in the production and distribution of bio fertilisers. These bio-input resource centres would be set up alongside the proposed 15,000 model clusters of natural farming. These BRCs would create to create a national-level distribution network for micro-fertilisers and pesticides, with each BRC responsible for one cluster under the mission.
Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati
The BPKP is a sub-mission under the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), under the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA). The aim of BPKP is to promote traditional indigenous practices, to give freedom to farmers from externally purchased inputs. The sub-mission focuses on on-farm biomass recycling with major stress on biomass mulching, use of cow dung-urine formulations and exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs, either directly or indirectly.
The scheme has a total outlay of more than Rs 4,600 crores from 2019–20 to 2024–25. It has been implemented on demand-driven basis following the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) guidelines.
The scheme is compliant to Participatory Guarantee System (PGS)—India certification under the PGS India programme. Eight states of India—Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Jharkhand—have opted for this scheme.
The BPKP is a centrally sponsored scheme and aims to improve the profitability of farmers, availability of quality food, and restoration of soil fertility and farmland ecosystem, besides generating employment and contributing to rural development.
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