introduction Zero Budget Natural Farming

                            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.