Natural Farming for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Prosperity

Natural farming is an approach to agriculture that emphasises working with nature's processes to grow crops in a sustainable and holistic way.

- DR. BANARSI LAL

It follows local agro-ecological principles rooted in indigenous knowledge ,location specific technologies and adaptations to local agro-ecology. Green Revolution in India had a phenomenal impaet on the Indian agriculture but it led to extensive water consumption and aggravated water loss. According to Central Water Commission the country's agricultural sector consumes about 83 per cent of the available water. Recently a great emphasis on Zero-Budget Natural Farming has been given in India. Zero Budget Natural Farming is the adaptation of an ancient practice that reduces the direct cost of the farmers and encourages them for the use of natural inputs such as cow urine and cow dung. This technology requires less tilling and completely rejects the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. It advocates mulching of crop residues to promote moisture retention in soil. It also involves waaphasa (soil aeration) to reduce water consumption, ZBNF has water saving potential and can address India's food and security in the long-run. This technology needs time and strategy for its more adoption. In order to fully explore the potential of ZBNF empirical research is needed to understand the social dynamics and scientific processes. It is unique model of farming that relies on agro-ecology. This method of farming aims to bring down the cost of production nearly zero and return to a pre-green revolution style of farming. This technology claims that there is no need of expensive inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and intensive irrigation. Natural farming is a way of chemical free farming based on livestock and locally available resources. This type of farming is based on farm-made resourees prepared by the farmer, Zero-Budget Natural Farming has attained a wide success in many states of India especially in the Southern states. Government is stressing on this farming calling for a back to the basies of the Indian agriculture. Presently many farmers have started t