Zero Budget Natural Farming
Zero Budget Natural Farming is a Revolutionary concept. which has the potential to change the landscape of Indian farming. This method was conceptualized and popularized by Shri Subhash Palekar. Subhash Palekar also popularly called as krishi ka Rishi. Was born in 1949 in a small village named bilora, of Maharashtra, India.
He was educated in Bachelor’s Degree in agriculture in Nagpur; in 1972, he joins his father, to take on the family occupation of agriculture. His father was the natural farmer, but after learning chemical farming in college.
He opted chemical farming in his farm. While practicing the chemical farming during the period of 1972 to 1985. His agricultural production was continuously increasing. But after 1985 it started declining, despite following the technology of chemical farming, in other words, green revolution Technology. After searching the cause for three years. He came to the conclusion that agricultural science is based on false philosophy. Something was fundamentally wrong with the Green Revolution. He then started searching for alternate technology to chemical farming. Afterward 154 research projects and after 6 years of verified research work. he formulated the zero budget natural farming techniques. He has been instrumental in setting up model forms across India demonstrating the zero budget natural farming techniques. He has conducted several workshops, seminars and written several books in Marathi, Hindi, English, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil languages.
sad state of farmer in India
Before we get into the details
of zero budget natural farming. Latest have a reality check, in the last 20
years, nearly 3 lakh farmers, have ended their lives by investing pesticides or
hanging themselves, Maharashtra state along with 60,000 farmer suicides tops
the list. Forty-one farmers commit suicide every day, leaving behind scores of
orphans and widows. The suicide rate among Indian farmers was around 45% higher
than the national average, according to the 2011 census. India loses 2,035
farmers every day to other sectors. Said a study by the Indian NGO Centre for
the study of developing societies and about 76% are ready to quit agriculture
for better jobs. The primary reason for this sad state, is because most
farmers fall into wishes death trap, from which do not see and as an escape. A
lot of this can be attributed to the chemical farming technology.
chemicals farming- A debt trap
Latest see
how? An average farmer with around 5 acres of cultivated land Spence
around 40000 rupees per year, on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. which
reduce the return on
investment. Forms using
chemical fertilizers are more prone to pests in sex and diseases, which
increases costly labour spend on the farms by around 40%. The soil of
forms using chemical fertilizers becomes harder and less poor over time.
Reducing its water retention capacity leading to more water and electricity
required for irrigation. Deterioration of health of farmers over time due to
hazardous fertilizers and pesticides during farming this leads to more spending
on personal health.
All of these factors have adverse of the act, on the return on investment for the farmer;
ensuring farming too is a loss making
occupation. The fact is the use of
chemical fertilizers in farms are so widespread today, that Indian Fertilizer
industry has become the third largest in the world in terms of production. For example, the urea production figures alone are
around 208 lakh metric tons per year. All thanks to the Green Revolution. With
these statistics,one would undoubtedly Karen impression, that soil fertility
cannot be sustained without the use of
chemical fertilizers, but how true is this statement. Contrary to a belief. Soil
contributes only 1.5 to 2% of Nutrition required for plant growth. Remaining 98 to 98.5 % are derived from air, water, and sunlight. Truly, this does not
justify the size of the Fertilizer industry. The Soil has an abundance of all nutrients. This has been
proven, tour research done on soil, samples were taken from different tabs. As
we go deeper into the soil, there is an inexhaustible quantity of all nutrients
required for plant growth. So one can easily derive from these two facts, that it is possible to
group best quality crops, without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Given
the size of the Fertilizer Industry and the huge revenues they make, it is
quite obvious that this fact when never revealed, to the innocent farmers.
But on May wonder. How is all this possible? What is the proof for all this statement?
Nature is a true teacher in many ways, these are the fact, that cannot be denied by any work. In the deep forest there is no human existence or assistance, yet there are normal tree and fruits on this big trees of Mango, tamarind, jamun, custard apple, neem, moha, etc. year on year.So much so that they
give fruits even during famine undoubtedly, there is a self-developing,
self-nourishing and it totally self-reliant natural system in the forest by
which the entire visitation and the ecosystem exist without any human
assistance or interference.
How does this happen?
There is one key
being, it is Forest ecosystem, which makes this happens. These are not visible to
the eyes, but they do exist. We are referring to the innumerable microorganisms
in the soil, which plays is an important
role, in fact, it is this microorganism, which
holds the secret of thick and green
forest polyester play a key role in
supplying all the nutrients from the soil, to the roots of the plants and trees.
To understand how exactly this happens, that's taken analogy, having a house
full of grain still does not ensure food for all in the house, it is the mother
of the wife of the cook of the house, who plays
the role of converting the Greens into a form which can be consumed by all in
the house, in the same way.
key role played by mother /wife
Those the soil is an abundant source of all nutrients
required for the plant. They're present, in what is called as non-available
forms, which mean the plant can't observe them in the root forms. It is this innumerable microorganism in the soil,
which plays the key role of converting the nutrients in the soil to unavailable
form which can then be absorbed by the roots. So truly microorganisms play a very crucial role
in a healthy ecosystem and it is really the microorganisms
are the true friends of farmers.
What has happened in this so called modern day chemical farming method?
The
indiscriminate use of synthetic fertilizers and toxic pesticides, have ensured
that all the microorganisms are eliminated completely, not only that even the
useful earthworm, which player very key role in bringing the rich nutrients, from
the death of the soil are also killed, as a result the farmer is forced to burn more and more money to
substitute for all the soil nutrients with chemical fertilizers, using more
fertilizer make plans list assistant
diseases and pests to which adds to the expense further, after spending all that
money to get a decent deal, if the market value of the crop Falls, due to various
reasons it pushes a small scale farmer, into wishes death trap. Which leaves in ruined for
life, of a farmers in this situation take
the extreme step and their life rather
than suffering the entire life trying to repay death high-interest
rates.
Having non-ill effects of chemical farming the should no second thoughts on saying
no to chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Now late as understand zero budget natural farming
techniques and understand how it can be a significant sustainable approach to
farming.
what is zero budget natural farming?
Zero budget natural farming is about eliminating chemical toxins from the
soil and create a healthy ecosystem for crop cultivation. Zero budget natural
farming is also about adopting principles of nature and farming using free
locally available ingredients and not using any commercially
sold ingredients.
Zero budget natural farming in a nutshell.
Zero budget
natural farming is basically a combination of techniques. Which covers all
aspects of farming. Firstly, we have the four wheels of zero budget natural
farming. Which starts with the technique of bijamrita,
are the seed treatment technique. This is an ancient technique, which was used
by Indian farmers, trade seeds, before
putting them to use. It basically removes toxins and gives disease resistance
to the plant. The second technique is jiwamrita. Which is the soil treatment technique. It helps to rejuvenate the soil with
useful microorganisms, which play a key role in zero budget natural farming. The
Third technique is mulching technique.
Which helps preserve soil fertility and creates a conducive environment for microbial and other biological
processes take place in the soil. The fourth technique is waaphasa technique. Which a soil enrichment technique used more for the tree plantation. Zero budget natural farming also used natural insect and pest Management formulas, which can
be used as and when required. The three techniques are agniastra bramhastra and neemastra. Zero budget natural farming as a
name implies does not require any
investment also able for any of the techniques. There are made from locally available ingredients-hence, through zero budget natural farming.
Advantages of Zero budget natural farming
There is a direct
financial savings, from not using commercial sold chemical fertilizers and
pesticides. It has been found from research the plants
grown with zero budget natural farming techniques are more resistant diseases
and pests over time, this decreases the labour required
crop maintenance practically. Water retention capacity of the soil
increases over time making crops more
drought resistant and reduce water and
electricity requirement for irrigation. Being a completely natural method there
are no ill effects to the health of the farmer.
High return on investment for each crop as the investment is zero or very low additional return can be derived
from companion planting and using monocot and dicot combinations in farming.
Almost all the techniques used in zero budget natural farming use cow dung or
the cow urine for its preparation. So it is important to understand the type of
cow to be used for this type of farming. The Desi cow or
indigenous breed of cows are the backbone of zero budget natural farming. For
century dung and urine from Desi cows. have been used in
farming. However due to the less milk production by Indian cows a lot of
farmers they moved away from indigenous breeds to crossbred cows like jersey
and HF. The diagram below
shows some of the characteristic differences between indigenous cow breeds
which are from BOS indicus group and the foreign breeds which are from BOS
Taurus group. The fact is while the milk production of Indian cow breeds is less
they are very high in nutritive value and the cow dung and urine to have a very
high beneficial property, one gram of desi cow dung contains 300 to 500 Crore
beneficial effective microbes, these microorganism and decomposers and Biomass
on the soil and get available the nutrients to the plants. All Indian cow breeds
have been found to be suitable for zero budget natural farming. However cross
bred jersey and HF cows cannot be used
in zero budget natural farming. As there dung and
urine have been found to contain more pathogens, which are harmful for the
plants and other startling fact is that dung and urine from one desi cow is
sufficient to cultivate 30 acres of land in zero budget natural farming.So latest encourage
farmers to go for desi cow breeds and not cross breed once, let us know
understand how we do zero budget natural farming the following section has
details on techniques used in zero budget natural farming along with reference
videos of how to prepare and use these techniques.
