Dr Ashu Sharma
To feed the growing world population, it is estimated that food production will need to increase by 70 percent by 2050. At the same time, India is expected to be the most populous country in the world by 2030, with 1.51 billion people. This increasing food demand is promoting farmers worldwide to increase crop production, which builds pressure on the environment and exceeds its carrying capacity to repair or replace itself, leading to its serious degradation. Under such condition, ensuring food security for the populace would be one of the biggest concerns for the country. No doubt, the Green Revolution (intensive use of high yielding variety seeds, chemical fertilizers and irrigation) has helped in overcoming the food shortage in the country. But the intensification of agriculture had led to considerable adverse environmental impacts, soil degradation, eutrophication of land and water bodies, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and biodiversity losses. In India, more than 85 per cent of total 146.5 million farmers are smallholders and more than 100 million farmers (68.5 per cent of total) are operating on an average 0.38 hectare land reiterated that majority of the poor and hungry people in the world live on small farms and struggle to subsist on too little land with low input-low yield technologies. Agriculture in its prevailing form requires farmers to rely heavily on inorganic external chemical inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. These contaminate groundwater and other water dependent ecosystems, reduce soil fertility over time, and contribute to biodiversity loss in farmlands. The use of such inputs exposes smallholder farmers to a high degree of credit risk, and traps them in a perpetual cycle of debt. Prevailing agricultural practices such as mono-cropping decrease soil moisture content, causing tremendous stress on water resources. Agriculture, today, accounts for almost 70 per cent of the world’s freshwater consumption. The use of external inputs by adoption of uniform, hybridized and genetically modified crop varieties erodes genetic diversity of seeds and reduces their capacity to adapt to changing climatic conditions.
Alternative low-input farming practices have emerged in pockets across the world promising reduced input costs and higher yields for farmers, chemical-free food for consumers and improved soil fertility. Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) is one such low-input, climate-resilient type of farming that encourages farmers to use low-cost locally-sourced inputs, eliminating the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. The word zero budgets mean no credit or no expenses, without any credit and without spending any money on purchased agricultural inputs. Another term natural farming is a method of chemical-free agriculture drawing from traditional Indian practices. In other sense, natural farming shows the importance of the synergistic effect of both plant and animal products on crop establishment, to build soil fertility and micro-organisms. It is one of the alternative farming practices for improving the farmers’ income, in the backdrop of declining fertilizer response and farm income. The four wheels of ZBNR includes: Bijamrita/beejamrutha: microbial coating of seeds using cow dung and urine based formulations; Jivamrita/jeevamrutha: application of a bioinoculum made with cow dung, cow urine, jaggery, pulse flour, water and soil to multiply soil microbes; Acchadana (mulching) :applying a layer of organic material to the soil surface in order to prevent water evaporation, and to contribute to soil humus formation and Waaphasa (aeration): soil aeration through a favourable microclimate in the soil. For insect and pest management, ZBNF encourages the use of various decoctions made with cow dung, cow urine and green chilies. The cow dung and urine used in the preparation of natural inputs are only from indigenous cows. These practices have been shown to have a positive effect on the quality of the soil, improving its fertility and water retention capacity. This is likely to reduce the reliance on resources such as water and electricity for irrigation. Substituting chemical fertilizers and pesticides with natural inputs might reduce input costs and farmers exposure to credit risks; the increase in net income will improve the cash flow of poor and vulnerable farmers, and may enhance their ability to deal with economic shocks and the reduced resource-dependence and improved soil quality might then help farmers adapt better to extreme climate events.
Strategies for Natural Farming: The natural farming (eco-agriculture) is considered even superior to organic farming in the sense that the former does not lay emphasis on ecosystem function and wild biodiversity conservation. Thus, the eco-agriculture involves concurrent action plans towards agricultural growth, poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation. There are some strategies needs to be followed for the successful implementation of natural farming (eco-agriculture).
4 Creation of biodiversity reserves that also benefit local farming communities.
4 The second strategy is the development of habitat networks with agriculture in non-farmed areas. This involves the integration of agricultural landscapes in many non-farmed areas with high-quality habitat for wild species that are compatible with farming.
4 The third strategy is the reduction or even reversal of the conversion of wild lands into agriculture by increasing farm productivity.
4 The basic principle governing all the approaches towards sustainable agriculture, conservation of biodiversity and health and welfare of all the rural women, children and men constituting especially the farming families is to minimize agricultural pollution through more resource-efficient methods of managing nutrients, pests and waste.
4 Modification of the management of soil, water and vegetation resources, in order to enhance the habitat quality in and around farms.
4 The sixth strategy is the modification of the farming systems to mimic natural ecosystems. Economically useful trees, shrubs and perennial grasses are integrated into farm in ways that mimic the natural vegetative structure and ecological functions to create suitable habitat niches for wildlife.
Challenges: Natural farming is eco-friendly sustainable to the environment maintains good health of soil, plant as well as human beings by increasing beneficial microbial population, chemical-free nutrients supply to plants and toxic-free food supplies to consumers (man and animals). But the labor requirement is increased compared to conventional farming, well developed heavy machinery, implements are not used in natural farming due to it creates soil compaction even there is no use of tractors in it, weakened agricultural market infrastructure- there is no value of natural products in large scale areas even the price also similar to chemically produced products, appropriate policy framework and setting of specific standards are some challenges in adoption of natural farming by the farming community. Farmers are not going to adapt this technology due to some lacunas so the government, researchers, scientists and extension workers should think about major challenges to success this zero-budget natural farming technology in a large area.
(The author is a scientist at KVK, Kathua, SKUAST-Jammu).
