Andhra Pradesh plans to convert its farmers and farming to a modified version of what Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned in the course of her budget speech on July 5—Zero Budget Natural Farming. The southern agriculture state has named it Climate Resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming (CRZBNF), inspired by the farming techniques promoted by Subhash Palekar, who was awarded Padma Shri by the Modi government in 2016.
The government, which has a website dedicated to its Zero Budget Natural Farming, says its aim is to “reach universalisation of natural farming practices by reaching six million farmers and converting eight million hectares into natural farming fields”. In other words, become the first, all-natural-farming state in the country.
The CRZBNF intends taking within its ambit other natural farming practices learnt in the course of the Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture—Andhra Pradesh's more than 20-year-old programme. Aimed at weaning farmers away from chemicals, it has succeeded in convincing one out of 100 farmers to go chemical-free.
In 2014, former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's government set up a not-for-profit organisation—Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS) or Farmers' Empowerment Organisation. The chief minister became the chairman of CRZBNF and the agriculture minister the vice-chairman.
The state government says the principles of ZBNF are in harmony with the principles of agroecology, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation has urged all countries to move towards the adoption of agroecology “to meet the twin goals of global food security and conservation of the environment”.
As chief minister, Naidu both conveyed and campaigned for the move, not only among the farmers in Andhra Pradesh, but also globally to raise funds. In November 2017, the theme of AP AgriTech Summit was 'Progressive Farmer, Smart Farming'. The focus was on innovative ideas, technologies and global best practices to push agricultural transformation in the state. Seemingly, the focus was also about going climate resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming, which, however, did have a budget—an estimated $2.3 billion (approximately Rs 17,000 crore)— meant to be raised as credit based on state guarantees, according to Leo Saldanha of Bengaluru-based Environment Support Group.
According to him, the method that was promoted as low-cost investment on the part of farmers, resulted in huge amounts being raised for state-wide implementation in Andhra Pradesh. Among those supporting the RySS is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
When controversies broke out over the control of data that will be gathered, including about India's indigenous biodiversities and agri practices, because foreign funds were flowing in, the RySS deputy chairman Thallam Vijay Kumar wrote to the Environment Support Group that the money would go towards building a statewide network of community resource persons, natural farming fellows and non-profits who would help deliver the programme by being a key link in the farmer-to-farmer learning.
A rather expensive effort at climate resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming, indeed. Such exercises so far have been confined to a few farmers, rather land owners, in a few parts of the country, who have the money to pour into this, and skills to market the produce at exorbitant prices to a select few takers.
The question really is: if it is all about being zero budget, and the only non-farm input being the land-owning family's labour, why has this not caught on across the country, like growing sunflowers for oilseeds did in the 90s? But Finance Minister Sitharaman expects this ZBNF to help double the farmers' income by 2022.
