Adoption of Natural Farming and its Effect on Crop Yield and Farmers' Livelihood in India

Abstract

Natural Farming or Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) has become a pivot point of discussion among the agricultural scientists, government, farmers and several other informal groups engaged in agriculture. This is mainly due to the reason that there are two diametrically opposite school of thoughts on this topic co-existing in the country. There are scientists who straightaway discard the philosophy of Natural Farming. On the other hand, its proponents are claiming the method to be panacea for all problems causing distress in Indian agriculture, especially for smallholders. In order to get the answer for several critical questions, NITI Aayog entrusted the teams at ICAR-NAARM and ICAR-CRIDA to carry out the present study. The study necessitated both primary survey as well as lab analysis of samples. The primary survey, which included various information related to socio-economic profile, cropping pattern, input use, output marketing, etc. from the Natural Farming adopters as well as Non-adopters was conducted by NAARM-team. At the same time, plant and soil samples from selected fields of adopter and non-adopter farmers were also collected for lab analysis, which was done by the team at CRIDA.