Haryana Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister, OP Dhankar on Wednesday urged the farmers to adopt zero budget natural farming, which would reduce expenditure on fertilisers, pesticides and other agriculture-related programmes being implemented in the State.
The Minister, after inaugurating 5-day workshop on zero budget natural farming at district Panchkula, said that there are 400 gaushalas in the State, and it is the need of the hour to change ‘gau bhakti’ into ‘gau shakti’.
Schemes have been prepared to make gaushalas self-sufficient and some gaushalas have been performing well, he said.
Highlighting the need to adopt natural farming methods, the Agriculture Minister said that while Punjab and Haryana are the biggest contributors of foodgrains to the Central Pool, the number of cases of deadly diseases such as cancer is on the rise in the two States. While 7,000 such cases were reported in PGIMS, Rohtak, the number increased to 35,000 cases in 2012, he added.
Giving details of the vision of the Haryana Government to double the income of the farmers by promoting peri-urban agriculture, he said that the Government is undertaking several initiatives in this direction and second Agri leadership Summit would be organised at Surajkund, district Faridabad to empower farmers by providing technical know-how.
The Minister said that farmers from 11 States would participate in the five-day workshop on zero budget natural farming, wherein agriculturalist and recipient of Padma Shri award Subhash Palekar, would serve as resource person.
Speaking at the workshop, Subhash Palekar highlighted the adverse effects of
using chemical fertilisers and pesticides.