How is the Indian government promoting chemical free Natural Farming
24 February 2023, New Delhi: After the announcement of chemical-free natural farming in the Union Budget 2022-23, Government has formulated Natural Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) by up-scaling the Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP) to promote natural farming on a larger scale across the country.
Department of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare (DA&FW) is undertaking large-scale training of Master Trainers, Champion Farmers, and practicing farmers on techniques of Natural Farming through the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) and National Center of Organic and Natural Farming (NCONF). It has also sensitized the public representative like Gram-Pradhan on the technique and benefits of Natural Farming. Study material in 22 regional languages has been prepared and 697 Master Trainers have been developed on natural farming and 997 training were conducted on natural farming for 56952 Gram Pradhans through MANAGE. In addition, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) has initiated research in 20 locations to validate natural farming techniques besides demonstrating in 425 KVKs to showcase the benefits of natural farming.
A Digital web portal (naturalfarming.dac.gov.in) has been launched for the promotion of natural farming to display information about the implementation framework, resources, implementation progress, farmer’s registration, blog, etc.
The government is promoting natural farming through a sub-scheme namely Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP) under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) since 2019-2020. So far 4.09 lakh ha area has been brought under BPKP.
Under BPKP, natural farming is being promoted in a cluster of 500 ha, and Rs. 12200.00 is provided per ha for three years, in which Rs. 2000 is provided as incentives to farmers through DBT.
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