The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, urging him and the government not to promote Zero Budget Natural Farming in an extensive way that it is doing currently, until it is scientifically verified to produce the promised results.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the 14th Conference of parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification referred the Zero Budget Natural Farming plan and said that India is focusing on ZNBF to promote sustainable farming.
What is ZBNF?
The idea of ZBNF is to employ the resources available in the environment to promote pesticide free farming to cultivate crops rather than using chemicals. It states that 90% of the nutrients required by the plants are available in the environment like, CO2, sunlight, water and nitrogen. Nitrogen, though found in abundance is not freely available and it needs to extract from its compounds.
ZBNF intends to employ the following methods to extract the nutrients available in nature:
Microbial Culture (Jivamitra) – To convert the nitrogen compounds to nitrogen from microorganisms and make it available to plants.
Bijamitra – Seed treatment solution.
Mulching – Covering the top soil with straws or dry leaves.
Waaphasa- Providing water outside the plant’s canopy to maintain air balance and soil temperature.
Aginastra, Brahmastra- Used to control pest and insects.
Most of the methods involved like Jivamitra, Bijamitra, Agniastra and Brahmastra employ cow urine and dung to function, as these are freely available, they require Zero Budget.
ZBNF not Scientifically Proven
NAAS has expressed concern over the impact of ZBNF on farmers’ income as well as on food security. NAAS president, Punjab Singh “As agricultural scientists, we do feel the need to move away from 100% chemical-based farming, but there needs to be proper scientific validation first.”
NAAS conducted a meeting which was attended by top 75-80 scientists of the agricultural sector, to discuss and examine the protocols and claims of ZBNF. They concluded that ZNBF is unproven technology and there are no such validated outcomes from any of the experiments to consider ZBNF as a viable technology for farmers.
Kapila Cows Theory
According to certain experts, “Zero Budget Natural Farming methods are effective only if cow dung and urine from Kapila cows is used”. This theory did not go well with the scientists since there is no evidence available that justifies the theory.
One-year Experiment too Short
Scientists claimed that there is only one-year’s data available which employs ZBNF methods and this is too short a time to predict its long-term impact.
However, Subhash Palekar, advisor on ZNBF for Andhra Pradesh, who presented the idea of ZBNF has said that farmers are practising this technology and his techniques do not require validation from NAAS. He claimed that the ZBNF is seed agnostic project and can be used for hybrid crops as well.
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) formed a committee to study the methods of ZBNF thoroughly. Experiments for last two years on wheat and paddy did not find any conclusive results and providing crop nutrient through this technique was found to be difficult. ICAR are now conducting experiments of ZBNF on paddy.
To conclude, there is no evidence that proves that ZBNF is viable for farmers.