“Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) - Implications for Sustainability, Profitability, and Food Security”, a study by NABARD

Posted 08 Mar 2024

Updated 25 Mar 2024

2 min read

Study assesses the ZBNF on four crucial parameters:
- Sustainable agriculture: Naturally obtained inputs like cow dung, cow urine, leaves, etc. are sustainable alternatives to the chemical inputs.
- Impact on farmers’ net incomes: A study showed that net income of ZBNF farmers exceeded that of the non-ZBNF practitioners in most crops.
- Influence on crop productivity: Although there have been instances of increased yield in some crops under ZBNF, traditional varieties under ZBNF can result in decline in per unit area productivity.
- Potential implications on national food security if scaled up: There would be significant food shortages impacting India’s self-sufficiency in foodgrains.

ZBNF is farming with nature without use of modern tools and technology (like machinery, genetically modified seeds, soil testing).
- According to it, plants obtain 98-98.5% of nutrition from air, water, and sun, and remaining 1.5% from the soil.
- System, therefore, can sustain and flourish even without nutrient supplementation.

Four wheels of ZBNF (Pioneered by Subhash Palekar) include:
- Beejamrit - Microbial coating of seeds
- Jeevamrit - Microbial coating of soil
- Waaphasa - Soil aeration
- Acchadana - Mulching - applying layer of organic material to soil surface

Union Government implements ZBNF as Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP), a sub-scheme of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).

Need for a long-term experimentation before suggesting ZBNF as a national level agriculture practice.
Farming practice neutrality: By providing direct benefit transfers (DBT), the subsidy becomes neutral towards specific farming practices.
Resilient supply chain networks for farm inputs are a prerequisite to transitioning towards natural farming

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