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Agro-ecology
Z.B.N.F. – Disguise to Cover up the Crisis
Agroecology is a system that
enhances fertility of lands,
increases yields, restores soil
health and biodiversity, promotes
climate resilience and improves
farmers’ well being. It is being
practices in various forms all over
the world –some of them being
practiced in India are organic
farming,
natural
farming,
permaculture, biodynamics, Jivik
krishi etc. One can call them as
alternative agricultural models.
Each system has some advan-
tages and also disadvantages. As
of now these alternative models
are being practiced on less than
1% of the farm land in India. These
have to be promoted with the
involvement of agricultural science
institutions under ICAR to correctly
assess their impact on production.
Financial viability, adoptability to
varied climatic conditions across
the country and more importantly
self sufficiency in food.
As opposed to the present
day industry-produced-inputs-
dependent agriculture , these
alternatives had to seek to reduce
use of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, restore soil fertility,
banning of Genetically modified
Organisms (GMO) and restoring
the right of farmers over seeds and
removing the grip of agri-MNCs on
our agriculture to achieve self
sufficiency in food. If we move
ahead with these goals, soon we
will be able to develop not a single
models, but a variety of models
suitable to varied conditions of
climate, soil fertility and size of land
holdings etc. enriched by local
knowledge and experience of
peasants.
For this there a need for a
coordinating agency consisting of
agricultural scientists, practitioners
of alternative agriculture, farmers
October - 2019
representatives, which sums up
the experience of practice over
years and disseminates the data
collected with recommendations to
apply them in fields. This is more
so because the practitioners of one
kind of model are negating the
other models and they also restrict
their efforts to only some of the
goals and not all. Thus they are
landing in empiricism sometimes
reflected as ego clashes. Subhash
Palekar rubbished the organic
farming while he did not included
food self sufficiency in his goals.
Recently Zero Budget Natural
Farming (ZBNF) hit the headlines.
In fact, it generated interest in the
country when its proponent,
Subhash Palekar was awarded
Padma Sree, and the government
of Andhra Pradesh promoting it
since then. The Finance Minister
Nirmala Sitaraman announced in
this year ’s budget that Indian
agriculture will be going “back to
basics” and that ZBNF needs to be
adopted by farmers across the
country. “Steps such as this can
help in doubling our farmers’
income” she said.
Natural farming has been in
practice for almost 10 years.
Japanese scientist Fukuoka first
popularized it practicing it in his
family farm. The model being
practiced by Subhash Palekar,
ZBNF, has ‘four wheels’: One,
Beejamrutam or microbial coating
of seeds using cow dung- cow urine
based
formulations.
Two,
Jeevamrutam, or application of
concoction made with cow dung,
cow urine, jiggery, pulse flour, water
and soil to multiply soil microbes.
Three, achhadana, mulching or
applying a layer of organic, material
to the soil surface, to prevent water
evaporation and contribute to soil
humus
formation.
Four,
Waaphasa, or soil aeration
through a favourable micro climate
in the soil. For insect and pest
management, ZBNF propagates
the use of various decoctions made
from cow dung, cow urine, lilac and
green chillies called kashayams.
Why the central government
chose only ZBNF excluding other
methods? Perhaps theiscourse
sancritised versions and ‘sacred’
cow dung and urine might have
suited the political discourse of the
BJP government. Leaving aside
these semantics, is ZBNF
beneficial?
The methods recommended
by Palekar were practiced by
farmers before the advent of green
revolution. My maternal grand-
father had five acres of land on
which he used to grow paddy in the
delta of river Krishna getting the
yield around 15 bags. The family
used to rear two oxen to plough the
land and three buffalos for milk.
The haystack from paddy crop
used to feed the livestock. The
dung and urine along with wasted
haystack were allowed to putrify at
one corner which was later used
to fertilise the soil. After green
revolution, the HYV seed increased
the yield of grains, but reduced the
quantity of haystack as they are
shorter, the total biomass being the
same. Gradually it became difficult
for the small and middle peasants
to rear livestock as the haystack
became scarce and consequently
chemical fertilizer replaced the
traditional biofertiliser.
This short description reveals
not only the ill effects of green
revolution, but also the short
comings of ZBNF. Firstly, it is not
the zero budget as the farmers has
to buy the biofertiliser component,
which is 40% less than chemical
fertilizer.
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