scholarly journals Zero Budget Natural Farming in India: Aiming Back to the Basics

Author(s):  
Saikat Biswas

Crisis of Indian agriculture is very pertinent at this moment as green revolution is gradually losing its hope. Excessive, pointless exploitation of broods of green revolution has left bad footprints on country’s food security and environmental safety. With the motto to ensure food security by reviving Indian agriculture in environmentally safe way as well as to release farmers from debt cycle and suicides, zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) has come in the picture, which discards uses of all the chemical farming inputs and relies on natural way of farming i.e. rejuvenating soil and crop health through its own practices (Jivamrita, Bijamrita, mulching, soil aeration, intercropping, crop diversification, bunds, bio-pesticides etc.). ZBNF movement right now is the most popular agrarian movement which begun in 2002 in Karnataka and later successfully spread in many states (specially, of South India) of the nation through numbers of trainings, demonstrations and various promotional activities. Successful outcomes from farmers’ fields of south Indian states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka etc. are encouraging and grabbing attention of farmers, public and private organisations towards ZBNF in recent times. Yet, various controversies regarding its transparency,      inadequate information, efficacy, practices, idealisms, even the term ‘zero budget’ etc. have agglutinated around ZBNF over the years since it debuted. Critics in fact have cited several references of drastic yield reductions with ZBNF practices in many places. Adequate scientific evaluation or monitoring of ZBNF’s successes or failures through multi-locational trials is now therefore the needful before allowing or restraining its run in Indian agriculture.

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
YASIN JESHIMA KHAN

In the changing climatic conditions and global scenario, in a continued green revolution; we have already accomplished food security and is legal through food security bill. Whereas, Systematic Management of Agricultural Resources and Technology (SMART) is the only way to nutritional security. India started breathing for agriculture with 30 Crore people (300 million) in the 1950's when we faced a huge food shortage and had to receive food under PL 480 agreement with the United States. Farmers brought us up from a net importer of food grains in 1950s, to an exporter; a huge jump. Whereas now again there is a shortage for pulses and oilseeds though we are having enough of cereals. What went wrong? We do have sufficient genetic diversity, we do have high yielding varieties, we have farmer supporting systems, but we were not SMART enough. Indian agriculture has registered impressive growth over last few decades with the same momentum of continued green revolution. Recent past has registered highest production levels in horticultural and fishery, animal husbandry products. The food grain production has increased from 51 million tonnes (MT) in 1950-51 to 265.57 MT during 2013-14 highest ever since independence. Even during 1950's we were the largest producers and exporters of many agricultural produce. At present, we have lost the first places in production of so many crops to our neighbours. It need not to be a monopoly but we should know our potential and at least to maintain the production level rather than giveup. So wise is the farmer, rich will be our nation. Hence, come on farmers raise up! We are your dependants! Self sufficiency has to be counted from the root level. If not at the level of an individual farmer, it should be from villages. A village should produce its needs starting from solar energy to food grain, milk, vegetables and feeds reducing the burden on transport and transportation loss. There is lack of 'we-feeling' or 'togetherness' in farm villages which cannot be created but can be inculcated in their minds for a better livelihood.


1999 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghbendra Jha ◽  
Mark J. Rhodes

This paper attempts to ascertain the requirements (in terms of ownership of factors of production) for successful adaptation to the Green Revolution in Indian agriculture. We estimate stochastic production frontiers for wheat in two Indian states: Haryana (which has been significantly affected by the Green Revolution) and Madhya Pradesh (where the Green Revolution has had much less effect). In Haryana, but not in Madhya Pradesh, larger farm size and ownership of land and machines positively influence technical efficiency. Thus, with the Green Revolution advancing, land consolidation and vesting of clear ownership rights of land and capital with farmers becomes important.


The productivity of land has been often discussed and deliberated by the academia and policymakers to understand agriculture, however, very few studies have focused on the agriculture worker productivity to analyze this sector. This study concentrates on the productivity of agricultural workers from across the states taking two-time points into consideration. The agriculture worker productivity needs to be dealt with seriously and on a time series basis so that the marginal productivity of worker can be ascertained but also the dependency of worker on agriculture gets revealed. There is still disguised unemployment in all the states and high level of labour migration, yet most of the states showed the dependency has gone down. Although a state like Madhya Pradesh is doing very well in terms of income earned but that is at the cost of increased worker power in agriculture as a result of which, the productivity of worker has gone down. States like Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura, though small in size showed remarkable growth in productivity and all these states showed a positive trend in terms of worker shifting away from agriculture. The traditional states which gained the most from Green Revolution of the sixties are performing decently well, but they need to have the next major policy push so that they move to the next orbit of growth.


Author(s):  
Paramanandham Krishnamoorthy ◽  
Subramanium Sudhagar ◽  
Akshata Lokanath Goudar ◽  
Siju Susan Jacob ◽  
Kuralayanapalya Puttahonappa Suresh

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Nouman ◽  
Dilawar Khan ◽  
Ihtisham Ul Haq ◽  
Nabeela Naz ◽  
Bibi Taharat E. Zahra ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Nilabja Ghosh

The paper finds that trade liberalization in Indian agriculture has expectedly promoted specialization in areas of advantage, namely the superior cereals and gone against diversification towards oilseeds. Trade liberalization seems to have picked up where green revolution left off while diversification suffered portending some well known ill effects. Since oilseeds that lose in the process and coarse cereals they replace and that have been on a decline for some decades are suited to dry environments whereas the superior cereals demand more water and other costly inputs, there is a need to seriously consider the concerns of diversity, sustainability and poverty in a heterogeneous agriculture when negotiating trade and designing policy.


Author(s):  
Kirtti Ranjan Paltasingh ◽  
Phanindra Goyari ◽  
Kiril Tochkov

Author(s):  
V.B. Zhezmer ◽  
A.O. Shcherbakov

Разработка принципов экологически безопасной эксплуатации агроландшафта при условии обеспечения оросительной водой не только используемых в настоящее время орошаемых площадей, но и выбывших из оборота мелиорированных земель, является актуальной и востребованной. Экологическая безопасность водообеспечения предполагает как экономию водных ресурсов, так и повышение безопасности эксплуатации гидромелиоративных систем (ГМС). В статье обоснована необходимость, с целью обеспечения безопасности гидротехнических сооружений, создания системы автоматизированного ведения мониторинга гидротехнических сооружений (ГТС) на основе современных веб-технологий, представлена концептуальная модель системы мониторинга, а также структура базы данных и принципы работы с массивами информации.The development of the principles of the environmentally safe operation of the agro-landscap, provided that irrigated water is provided not only for the currently used irrigated areas, but also all reclaimed land, is relevant and in demand. Environmental safety of water supply involves both saving water resources and improving the safety of the operation of irrigation and drainage systems (HMS). The article substantiates the need, in order to ensure the safety of hydraulic structures, the creation of a system for automated monitoring of hydraulic structures (GTS) based on modern web technologies, presents a conceptual model of a monitoring system, as well as a database structure and principles for working with arrays of information.


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