News:Noted agriculturist Subhash Palekar has said that the zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) can act as an alternative method of agriculture to resolve the plight of farmers.
Facts:
About Zero budget natural farming(ZBNF):
- Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) is a farming practice that believes in natural growth of crops without adding any fertilizers and pesticides or any other foriegn elements.
- The word Zero Budget refers to the zero net cost of production of all crops.Natural farming’ means farming with Nature and without the use of fertilisers.
Four wheels of ZBNF:
- Jeevamrutha: It is a fermented microbial culture that uses urine and dung from an indigenous cow breed and paste of green gram to rejuvenate the soil to provide micro-nutrients to crops.
- Bijamrita: It is a treatment used for seeds, seedlings or any planting material.
- Acchadana: It promotes mulching and soil aeration for favourable soil conditions.
- Whapasa: It means providing water to maintain the required moisture-air balance.
Benefits of ZBNF:
- The yields of various crops have been found to be significantly higher in the ZBNF.
- The Input costs are near zero as no fertilizers and pesticides are used in this method.
- There will be no toxic chemical residues released in the environment.
- This method also reduces the use of water and electricity.
- This method may also end reliance on loans and cut the production costs ending the debt cycle.
Concerns of ZBNF:
- Experts have said that the term ‘zero budget’ is misleading as modern agriculture requires a whole set of expensive external inputs apart from sizeable capital investments initially.
- Recently, Maharashtra have reverted back to conventional farming after seeing their ZBNF returns drop after a few years.
