The government on Monday announced a national mission to promote natural farming among one crore farmers in 7.5 lakh hectares (hectares) with an outlay of Rs 2,481 crore over the next two years.
The decision taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi aims to introduce natural farming in 7.5 lakh hectares through 15,000 clusters to be set up in interested panchayats.
Speaking at a media briefing after the meeting, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said, “There is a need to improve soil quality and maintain people’s health with chemical-free food…The National Mission on Natural Farming is a path-breaking decision.” ” He said this single central scheme with a budget outlay of Rs 2,481 crore will cover 1 crore farmers across the country by 2025-26.
The minister said that natural farming will be promoted on mission mode after successful experiments in 2019-20 and 2022-23. He said that at present natural farming is being done on about 10 lakh hectares of land across the country. On the implementation of the mission, the Minister said the government will select interested panchayats for development of 15,000 natural farming clusters and encourage the establishment of 10,000 need-based bio-input resource centres, to supply natural farming inputs and seeds. Rs 1 lakh can be given as capital assistance.
About 18.75 lakh farmers will be trained/supported in batches of 30 in agricultural universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and 200 local natural farming institutes. At the block level, 30,000 Krishi Sakhis/community resource persons will be deployed to create awareness, organize interested farmers into groups and guide them. An online digital platform will be set up to monitor and track the progress – with a geo-tagged database of farmers, farms, soil health, input costs, etc.
The mission will aim to promote nature-based sustainable farming systems, reduce dependence on externally procured inputs, improve soil health and reduce input costs. It will popularize integrated agro-animal husbandry models and establish scientifically supported common standards and easy farmer-friendly certification processes for naturally grown chemical-free products, as well as create a single national brand for such products and Will promote. The focus will also be on strengthening the on-farm agro-ecological research and knowledge-based extension capacity of agricultural institutions like ICAR, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and Agricultural Universities etc.
