Himachal Governor Acharya Devvrat on Wednesday said that ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ was a better option for making the nation self-reliant in agriculture sector. He said that the produce out of natural farming helped not only in healthy living but was environment friendly too. He urged the farmers to adopt natural farming (Rishi Kheti) for getting toxic free and nutritious food production.
The Governor was speaking while inaugurating four days long seminar on ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ organized by CSK Agriculture University, Palampur in Kangra district with the help of Eminent scientist Dr. Subhash Palekar, who is a pioneer of ‘zero-budget spiritual farming’.
The Governor urged the farmers to adopt traditional farming to enhance the quality of their produce and to get better prices in the market. He expressed concern over the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers which not only diluted the health content in crops but also affected the fertility of the soil. He called upon the scientists of the University to hold camps across the state to educate the farming community about traditional and natural farming and added that special awareness should be generated for adopting zero-budgeting for improving the existing agriculture practices in the State.
The Governor said that best part of adopting natural system of farming was that it has no financial implication and the farmers would not have to outsource from the market as it was prepared naturally by the farmer itself.
On the occasion, Subhash Palekar said that organic farming was based on composting and vermin compost techniques which pollute the atmosphere, as the resultant manures were known to emit huge quantities of greenhouse gases (methane) and Fukuoka approach only leads to excessive weed growth in farms, affecting crop yields.
He said that his method largely draws from ancient Indian farming techniques, at the heart of which was a formulation called ‘Jiwamrita’.
He said that the so-called modern agricultural practices taught at universities were, indeed, detrimental to farming. The only terms that got repeatedly hammered in students’ minds were fertilizers, hybrid seeds, insecticides, irrigation, and deep trenches, he added.
According to him, Jiwamrita basically nurtures thousands of bacteria essential for healthy crop growth. The urine and dung used in the formulation, he insists, should be from indigenous cattle: “one desi cow can nourish 30 acres”.
He stated that the term zero-budget farming was self-explanatory. All you spend was on seeds and Rs 5,000 per acre for laying the harvested residue carpet, which could be covered by the inter-crop raised on it, he added and said that whatever was obtained from sale of the main crop was the income.
Progressive farmers, faculty members of the university, officers of the district administration, students, representatives of various non-governmental organizations and other prominent people were also present on the occasion.