NEWS

The Ministry for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has inaugurated the Comprehensive Training Programme on Natural Farming

NATURAL FARMING

• Chemical- free farming and livestock based
• Diversified farming system that integrates crops, trees and livestock
• Allows optimum use of functional biodiversity.
• Introduced by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer and philosopher, in his 1975 book The One-Straw Revolution.
• Builds on natural or ecological processes that exist in or around farms
• Internationally, Natural Farming is considered a form of regenerative agriculture—a prominent strategy to save the planet.
• Has the potential to manage land practices and sequester carbon from the atmosphere in soils and plants, where it is actually useful instead of being detrimental.
• In India, Natural farming is promoted as Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Programme (BPKP) under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).
• BPKP is aimed at promoting traditional indigenous practices which reduce externally purchased inputs.
• Natural Farming, as the name suggests, is the art, practice and, increasingly, the science of working with nature to achieve much more with less.