Back to Nature
Zero- budget natural farming gets a big push in the state
Sixty- two- year- old farmer G. Narayanappa used to find it impossible to eke out a living from his 2.5 acres of land in Melavoi, a village in Anantapuram district and the second driest area in India. Since 2015, though, after the farmer turned to zero- budget natural farming ( ZBNF), his land has never been fallow. While mango is his main crop, Narayanappa now grows eight types of fruits, three varieties of millets, two oilseeds, nine different vegetables and six kinds of f lowers ( as short duration crops). ZBNF is focused on improving soil health and avoiding market inputs like chemical fertilisers. Its main tenets are crop rotation, green manure, biological pest control and mechanical cultivation. “I did not dream the land being green all year round. Now, it is like a oasis,” says the farmer. What has worked is “giving more importance to the soil, to which we belong...” he says.
Drawing on expertise from ZBNF’s biggest champion, Subhash Palekar, a Vidarbha farmer who was appointed advisor by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in June, the state government set up a corporation to handhold farmers like Narayanappa. The Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sadhikara Samstha ( APRySS) conducted dozens of training programmes where Palekar spoke to farmers. “Cost of production is quite low. We use local seeds that we propagate using only a tenth of the water most farmers are used to,” he says. Palekar’s prescription inv olved infusing the soil with a culture of microorganisms in cattle- dung fertiliser. No synthetic fertilisers or pesticides are used.
While just 40,000 farmers took to ZBNF in 2016, the number nearly quadrupled this year to 150,000 farmers across the state. “We emphasise that the ‘ back to nature’ approach is remunerative in the long run. It is climate resilient and favourable to consumers too,” says APRySS vice- chairman T. Vijay Kumar. Kumar hired farmers already into natural farming as ‘ community resource persons’, to spend 3- 4 weeks in villages outside their native districts, among fellow farmers. This had a lasting impact. Accolades have followed. The Union agriculture ministry will present the Andhra initiative as a ‘ country best practice in climate change resilience’ at the 23rd Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at Bonn ( Nov. 6- 17). Meanwhile, Andhra plans to move 500,000 farmers and 500,000 hectares to ZBNF in three years.