Developing A Rural Economic Model To Make Villages Rich And Prosperous

HariPrasad-1

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Hi guys,

As all of us know, there is a great migration from villages to cities. Villages are becoming less and less livable places in most of the areas. How can we make villages more livable is a big question. If we can build a proper model of for villages and can build something worthwhile, we can stop migration from villages to cities. Core to this model is economy, health facility and education. We should build a nice economic model for rural economy with focus of farming, animal husbandry, cottage industries, handicrafts etc. So far as health care is concern, we can educate people about healthy life style, herbal medicines etc. In education, we can provide build a very nice school among few villages. we can give them training in handicraft , stitching etc.

Let us discuss how can we build a rural model for the development of villages.

A humble request to moderators not to merge this thread with other like they did to my beautiful thread "How to make India grow fast and make rich"
 

HariPrasad-1

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Our great scientist and thinker Dr. A P J abdul kalam gave us a great model of rural development. He proposed making a rural cluster of around 20 villages and build all rural amenities in that cluster. Villages in the cluster should be inter connected with roads and the cluster itself should be connected to highway or city by road. This cluster should have school, college, hospital etc into it. it should be by and large and independent units with minimum dependency on cities and outside world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providing_Urban_Amenities_to_Rural_Areas

Introduction[edit]
To make the basic amenities like good roads and drinking water accessible to people even in remote villages, The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India has re-launched the scheme Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) as a Central Government scheme during the remaining period of the eleventh five-year plan. MoRD, with support from Department of Economic Affairs and the Asian Development Bank (which provided the technical assistance), intends to implement the PURA scheme under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between Local executive bodies like the Gram Panchayat(s) and private sector partners. The vision of the scheme in particular is providing dual benefits like rural infrastructure development coupled with economic re-generation activities; it is the first attempt of the government in this direction of delivering basic amenities and infrastructure through this model to people in remote rural areas. All the efforts are directed to obtain dual benefits, provide a different framework for the efficient implementation of rural infrastructure development schemes and benefit from the private sector efficiencies in the management of assets and delivery of services.

Background[edit]
After India gained its independence, despite of a plethora of welfare schemes and activities aimed at rural areas in successive five year plans, a skewed development model increasing the disparities between the rural and the urban areas has proliferated. Lack of livelihood opportunities, modern amenities and services for decent living in rural areas lead to migration of people to urban areas. There are wide gaps in the availability of physical and social infrastructure between rural and urban areas. To address these issues, the President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam highlighted a vision of transformation of rural India by launching a large-scale mission for Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA).

On the eve of India’s 54th Republic Day, in 2003, Dr. Kalam addressed the nation explaining them his vision for a new India. He visualised providing four elements of connectivity: physical connectivity, electronic connectivity, knowledge connectivity leading to economic connectivity of rural areas and where there would be a lesser urban-rural divide. PURA was envisaged as a self-sustainable and viable model of service delivery to be managed through an implementation framework between the different stakeholders involved, namely local people, public authorities and the private sector. The Government support would be in the form of finding the right type of management structure to develop and maintain rural infrastructure, empowering the management structure and providing initial economic support. Subsequently, the Prime Minister of India also announced implementation of a PURA scheme in his Independence Day speech on 15 August 2003.

Mission[edit]
"Holistic and accelerated development of compact areas around a potential growth centre in a Gram Panchayat (or a group of Gram Panchayats) through Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework for providing livelihood opportunities and urban amenities to improve the quality of life in rural areas"[3]

Vision[edit]
The vision of transformation to a 'developed' India can only be realised if we launch a mega mission for empowering the rural people. Creation of Physical, electronic and knowledge connectivities leading to economic connectivity in villages. Such a model of establishing a circular connectivity among the rural village complexes will accelerate rural development process by empowerment. sundarchinna was rural development programes

Strategy[edit]
Public–private partnership (PPP)[edit]
The Mission & Vision of PURA is to bring together the experience & expertise of both public & private players to achieve the objectives which are proposed to be achieved under the framework of PPP between Gram Panchayats and private sector partner. Core funding shall be sourced from the Central Sector scheme of PURA and complemented by additional support through convergence of different Central Government schemes. The private sector shall also bring on board its share of investment besides operational expertise. The scheme would be implemented and managed by the private sector on considerations of economic viability but designed in a manner whereby it is fully aligned with the overall objective of rural development. To attract the private sector, there is a need to design the scheme that would be 'project based' with well defined risks, identified measures for risk mitigation and risks sharing among the sponsoring authority (Gram Panchayat), Government of India, State Government and the Private Partners

Pilot-testing and up-scaling[edit]
Seven pilot projects were implemented during the 10th Five Year Plan in Basmath(Maharashtra), Bharthana (Uttar Pradesh), Gohpur (Assam), Kujanga (Orissa), Motipur (Bihar), Rayadurg (Andhra Pradesh) and Shahpura (Rajasthan). An evaluation study of these pilot projects was carried out by National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) which identified the necessity of community and private sector participation as essential factors and the need for factoring infrastructure development with lead economic activities and livelihoods creation, requirement of project site selection on the basis of growth potential and need for convergence with other schemes of the government. Based on the findings of the evaluation study by NIRD, Comments, Feedback received from different stakeholders like various Ministries/Departments, feedback received during consultations with private sector representatives and officials of State Governments, and the recommendations of the consulting team of Asian Development Bank, the scheme of PURA has been restructured for implementation on pilot basis during 11th Five Year Plan[4] as a Central Sector scheme Through the implementation of proposed pilot projects in different parts of India, the unique features of this scheme would be tested on the ground so providing lessons for upscaling in the future and extending PURA throughout the country. Besides, the entire process is intended to strengthen the institutional ability of a Gram Panchayat to undertake PPP and help pilot-test the viability of PPPs in rural infrastructure development.

Planning[edit]
For a Scheme of this magnitude and importance and the impact it could have in the future and change the very face of Rural Areas in a developing country like India, Proper back ground research and planning has to be undertaken for the success of this project. The Private Partner selected after properly analysing his financial and operational abilities to undertake PURA projects shall identify a Gram Panchayat, a cluster of geographically contiguous Gram Panchayats for a population of about 25,000– 40,000. Whereas, the cluster would be the project area, there may be sub-projects to cover each of the Panchayats within the cluster. Alternatively, a large single Panchayat could individually provide critical mass to make the project viable. In the pilot phase, the Private Partner is given the flexibility to identify and select the Gram Panchayat(s) for undertaking PURA projects based on their familiarity with the area or past experience of working at the grassroots level. In this identified PURA area, the Private Partner shall plan for the development/re-development of selected infrastructure services along with economic activities, after undertaking baseline studies

Identification of infrastructure needs and urban amenities[edit]
The different Amenities & activities can be divided into three types: 1)Amenities/Activities to be provided under MoRD Ministry of Rural Development) Schemes (Mandatory), 2) Amenities to be provided under Schemes of other Ministries (non-MoRD Schemes), 3) Add-on Projects (Revenue earning, people centric projects).[5]

MoRD Schemes Non-MoRD Schemes Add-on Projects
Water and Sewerage Village Street Lighting Village linked tourism
Construction and maintenance of Village Streets Telecom Integrated Rural Hub, Rural Market.
Drainage Electricity generation Agri – Common Services Centre and Warehousing.
Solid Waste Management Any other rural – economy based project.
Skill Development & Economical ability
Business model[edit]
The essence of the PURA scheme is to have the best of both the worlds Private & Public, The leveraging of public funds with private capital and management expertise for creation and maintenance of rural infrastructure.

Funding[edit]
Funding for the various projects taken up under the PURA scheme depending on the priority, relevance to the objectives of the government may come from four sources: MoRD schemes, non-MoRD schemes, private financing[6] and Capital Grant under PURA.

MORD schemes[edit]
As the main vision of PURA scheme is the convergence of various schemes and a sustainable framework for long term maintenance of assets keeping in view the long term vision of the government, most of the capital expenditure will have to come from government schemes. Only community development schemes would ordinarily be included as the private partners would find it difficult to manage individual beneficiary schemes

Non-MORD schemes[edit]
The private partners selected shall also be responsible for delivering certain services under schemes of other ministries, as per the guidelines of those schemes. Alternatively, the concerned Ministry may make funding available if it finds the service to be very relevant to the local people there and under those schemes through DRDA.[7]

Private funding[edit]
In some cases and schemes It is possible that the essential infrastructure may not get fully funded by Government schemes to give equal responsibility and ownership to the private player in such instances wherein the Developer shall invest some capital of its own to fund the CAPEX of such infrastructure and to meet the operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. Financing of commercially viable add-on projects will be done fully through private funding.

Current status of PURA[edit]
Failure of PURA[edit]
Former Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on 24 February 2012 launched the restructured PURA scheme that combines rural infrastructure development with economic regeneration in Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode and seeks to harness the efficiencies of the private sector. He slammed former president APJ Abdul Kalam's concept of PURA(Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) as a failure. Ramesh said that while the PURA Launched by Kalam has failed, the reworked PURA will succeed.[8] The minister was optimistic about the success of the new PURA because of the difference in the objectives. He was of the view that, now the focus was on water supply, sanitation, physical infrastructure rather than knowledge connectivity.

Extension to 2000 new towns[edit]
The Rural ministry plans to reform one of its ambitious yet not so successful programme – Provision of Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) – to facilitate creation of urban infrastructure in around 2,000 new towns that have been identified by the 2011 decadal Census. It is also trying to restructure the old PURA objectives laid down by the then President[9]

Under payment of wages[edit]
The Prestigious scheme proposed providing livelihood and urban amenities in compact areas around a potential growth centre in Gram Panchayats through Public Private Partnership (PPP) framework to provide guarantee employment to rural areas so that they could have an assured income for at least 100 days of a year. the scheme is now facing rampant corruption, cases of underpayment of wages have been received by the government from all over the country.[10]
 

ezsasa

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Yes, I am a proponent of more economy in villages.

One of the patterns that need to be looked into is to how more cash can be retained in the village.

Fundamentally what is happening in Agri sector is that the seeds, farm equipment purchases is driving the cash flow away from the villages and into cities.

Research needs to be done to retain atleast 50% of cash earned by the village thru agri sales is retained in the village. Once sufficient cash is retained in the village, cash flow will sustain the families in the village.


Once this happens, every thing else will follow.
 

HariPrasad-1

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I think we have to look back at rural economy and see how it used to function. If you destroy that structure, it will be very difficult for rural economy to survive. Main drivers of economy should be agriculture, waste utilization, economic use of water and water conservation. I will write in detail about each one.
 

Hari Sud

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Village and farmer prosperity or lack of it is not in theory as described in Hariprasad-1 lead article above or extending loans to them as the UPA and Congress Party head honchos did for many years. It is the division of land which happens when the older generation passes into the new.

Let us see, a profitable 10 acres land farm gets divided into his children as the generational change happens. The subdivided plots are not profitable even though the amount of output increases with use of fertilizers and pesticides. Now a profitable 10 acre plot has made the offsprings into just subsistence farmers, hardly able to support themselves. It results in economic lot of farmers tilling the land go from bad to worst. The forgoing is the true reason of farmer’s desperateness expressed in seeking more and more aid and waiver of previously obtained aid. They change their political affiliation from one party to the other, each promising waiver but can do nothing.

There is no system in the society to prevent the division of the farm when one generation passes the farm on to other. Since 1960, two generational changes have happened. The land has been divided already two or three times. The farmers are tilling an uneconomic farming model. If society works to redress this issue, their will be no need for huge loans or their waiver. Quite a few subsidies extended will not be needed. The political issue today is to find work to the idled children.
 

Indx TechStyle

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  • Minimize the monopoly of Gram Panchayats, let them have a mayor or something like a D.C. in every district. Justice should be through district court.
  • End open defecation. Modi government is achived only 95% accessibility of toilets, usage may still below 80%. Things have improved for sure but government figures are unrealistic as per as far I know about people's mindset. It won't end before 15 years.
  • Instead of imparting money & making more & more loos which will never be maintained, criminalize open defecation and make it mandatory to have an indoor toilet. See effect thereafter.
  • Get some taxi pod, monorail or another kind of cheap infrastructure to connect villages to cities so that more & more people can commute.
  • FORMALISE EVERYTHING. Without FORCED FORMALISATION, everything in India will keep moving at snail's pace usual.
 

kstriya

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  • Minimize the monopoly of Gram Panchayats, let them have a mayor or something like a D.C. in every district. Justice should be through district court.
  • End open defecation. Modi government is achived only 95% accessibility of toilets, usage may still below 80%. Things have improved for sure but government figures are unrealistic as per as far I know about people's mindset. It won't end before 15 years.
  • Instead of imparting money & making more & more loos which will never be maintained, criminalize open defecation and make it mandatory to have an indoor toilet. See effect thereafter.
  • Get some taxi pod, monorail or another kind of cheap infrastructure to connect villages to cities so that more & more people can commute.
  • FORMALISE EVERYTHING. Without FORCED FORMALISATION, everything in India will keep moving at snail's pace usual.
I would rather say use bio fuels which can accelerate rural income and make farming profitable
 

Darth Malgus

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I was watching speeches of Sadhguru and he had some brilliant ideas to improve the quality of life of people in villages. Am at work so can't post any videos, Will try to post relevant Videos, once I reach home.
 

YagamiLight

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There is not a single country in the entire world which has a industrialised/developed economy while still having majority of the population living in villages.
To put it on simpler terms, economic development and urbanisation goes hand in hand be it USA, France or be it Japan / China. This is because cities are very efficient way for specialisation in economics which is how you get economic development. This basic won't change just for the whims of the bhakthals. So sorry to burst your rather pathetic bubbles - development of villages to the level of cities just isn't going to happen. This however doesn't mean villages won't become better off economically than before, which is happening right now. But this obsession with making rural economy rich, which is usually implied in relation to cities, is stupid to say the least
 

Indx TechStyle

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There is not a single country in the entire world which has a industrialised/developed economy while still having majority of the population living in villages.
India's urbanization rate is enough to get a larger fraction of population living in cities than villages in few decades. Less than 3!
This basic won't change just for the whims of the bhakthals. So sorry to burst your rather pathetic bubbles - development of villages to the level of cities just isn't going to happen. This however doesn't mean villages won't become better off economically than before, which is happening right now. But this obsession with making rural economy rich, which is usually implied in relation to cities, is stupid to say the least
I thought you're a leftist and here you're pitching against villages.
Yeah, villages can never come across in neck with cities in quality of life but that doesn't mean that people living in villages are to be neglected.
If they are developed, educated and more civilized before settling in cities, urbanization will be more civilized.

And if you haven't planned anything, you know worst countries to live in world too are either highly urbanized or have damn high rates of urbanization.
 

HariPrasad-1

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Zero Budget Farming is an excellent emerging concept. It has the potential to increase farmer,s income by many fold. It focuses on totally desi fertilizer sourced from Cow dung. The method is so effective. Only one cow is enough for provide fertilizer to 30 acres of Land. It focuses on improving the soil quality. Soil becomes so pours that its water holding capacity increases 4 to 6 times and as a result, water consumption in farming drops to 50pc to 20 pc than required in chemical fertilizer farming.

The biggest plus point is that farmers need not source seeds from market. They can use their own seed out of the crop they produced.
If you use sugarcane by this method using desi seeds, your sugarcane will last for years. Just cut it when it grows. You can do it again and again. This is true for many crops. Your brinjal plant will last for a long long time. one need not plant vegetable plants too often. This area need to be explored more and more.

There is a huge market of beauty products. We can use agriculture products instead of chemicals for in that. This will shift the income to rural areas from big factories and multinational companies. I will post more on zero budget farming and waste decomposor in my future posts.
 

Indx TechStyle

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I was wondering regarding Definition of Rural and Urban Areas which quite distinct in India than rest world.

Our own definition (municipality control), puts us no more than 40% urban, by Chinese definition (of population density), we'd be 50-60% urban. By being rational and include connectivity with urban infrastructure facilities, we might cross 70%. Gujarat will be 75% urbanized and Kerala will be 98%.
 
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ezsasa

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Zero Budget Farming is an excellent emerging concept. It has the potential to increase farmer,s income by many fold. It focuses on totally desi fertilizer sourced from Cow dung. The method is so effective. Only one cow is enough for provide fertilizer to 30 acres of Land. It focuses on improving the soil quality. Soil becomes so pours that its water holding capacity increases 4 to 6 times and as a result, water consumption in farming drops to 50pc to 20 pc than required in chemical fertilizer farming.

The biggest plus point is that farmers need not source seeds from market. They can use their own seed out of the crop they produced.
If you use sugarcane by this method using desi seeds, your sugarcane will last for years. Just cut it when it grows. You can do it again and again. This is true for many crops. Your brinjal plant will last for a long long time. one need not plant vegetable plants too often. This area need to be explored more and more.

There is a huge market of beauty products. We can use agriculture products instead of chemicals for in that. This will shift the income to rural areas from big factories and multinational companies. I will post more on zero budget farming and waste decomposor in my future posts.
Yup, CBN is promoting this a lot. Any other state taking this up?
 

HariPrasad-1

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I was wondering regarding Definition of Rural and Urban Areas which quite distinct in India than rest world.

Our own definition (municipality control), puts us no more than 40% urban, by Chinese definition (of population density), we'd be 50-60% urban. By being rational and include connectivity with urban infrastructure facilities, we might cross 70%. Gujarat will be 75% urbanized and Kerala will be 98%.
Do not go into those definitions. Consider those who earns their earning from animal husbandry, farming and other vocations as rural irrespective of the population of village or town.
 

HariPrasad-1

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Agroecology Knowledge Hub
Zero Budget Natural Farming in India


Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) is a set of farming methods, and also a grassroots peasant movement, which has spread to various states in India. It has attained wide success in southern India, especially the southern Indian state of Karnataka where it first evolved. The movement in Karnataka state was born out of collaboration between Mr Subhash Palekar, who put together the ZBNF practices, and the state farmers association Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a member of La Via Campesina (LVC).

The neoliberalization of the Indian economy led to a deep agrarian crisis that is making small scale farming an unviable vocation. Privatized seeds, inputs, and markets are inaccessible and expensive for peasants. Indian farmers increasingly find themselves in a vicious cycle of debt, because of the high production costs, high interest rates for credit, the volatile market prices of crops, the rising costs of fossil fuel based inputs, and private seeds. Debt is a problem for farmers of all sizes in India. Under such conditions, ‘zero budget’ farming promises to end a reliance on loans and drastically cut production costs, ending the debt cycle for desperate farmers. The word ‘budget’ refers to credit and expenses, thus the phrase 'Zero Budget' means without using any credit, and without spending any money on purchased inputs. 'Natural farming' means farming with Nature and without chemicals.

Year: 2016
Country/ies: India
Geographical coverage: Asia and the Pacific
Full text available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a-bl990e.pdf
Content language: English
Type: Case study

http://www.fao.org/agroecology/detail/en/c/443712/
 

HariPrasad-1

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The zero budget farming discord
There is unease over the crusader of natural farming, Subhash Palekar, for renaming the technique after himself

[/paste:font]
Latha Jishnu
Last Updated: Tuesday 13 November 2018



More than 40 years ago, a Japanese farmer upended conventional thinking on agriculture with his path-breaking book, The One-Straw Revolution. In the book published in 1975, Masanobu Fukuoka advocated a return to natural farming, that is, applying the laws of nature to agricultural practices. It was a revolutionary concept that showed farming needed no external inputs at all. Fukuoka’s idea was simple: leave the Earth alone. No ploughing, no tilling, no use of chemicals or prepared fertilisers. Nor did he flood his rice fields as farmers in Asia have done from time immemorial. Yet, the one-time plant pathologist stunned the world with crop yields that equalled, if not surpassed, those of Japan’s best farms.

In India farmers had practised natural farming for long till the Green Revolution steam rolled their traditional practices and forced them to adopt the modern system of high-cost chemical inputs and hybrid seeds. When the “revolution” began to fail and destroyed lands and livelihoods, some farmers began their search for a return to alternative systems. One of them was Subhash Palekar of Vidarbha, who had practised chemical farming till 1986. After several experiments, Palekar—he met Fukuoka when the Japanese philosopher visited India —put together a four-step technique of natural farming and promoted it widely across Karnataka as zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) with a crusading spirit, helped by the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangh, a farmers’ organisation. ZBNF’s biggest success came in Andhra Pradesh when the Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, a state-owned non-profit company, adopted it. Major funding has been earmarked for the programme, which Andhra Pradesh calls climate resilient ZBNF or CRZBNF.

Across India there are thousands of farmers, possibly tens of thousands, who practise different forms of natural farming. Many others have been following the principles laid down by Fukuoka in his book without calling it the Fukuoka method. But Palekar has now caused consternation by telling his numerous followers that on popular demand and to make it more inclusive, ZBNF will, henceforth, be known as Subhash Palekar Spiritual Farming (SPSF). He claims many organisations, universities and scientists are willing to adopt this system, but have objected to the “zero budget” nomenclature. Their contention, according to Palekar, is that big farmers need to buy pumps, pipes and a host of other machinery for their operations, and as such cannot call it zero budget.

That may be a consideration, but the actual reason appears to be his sense of ownership. As he mentions in a Facebook post, “Some people are misusing ZBNF by not taking my name as researcher in their speeches. It is very dangerous and a cheating.” He has called upon supporters to remove ZBNF and substitute it with SPSF in group names, banners and posters. As to the criticism of spiritual in the new name, Palekar says he “will not at any cost” agree to the demand of atheists since it stems from a “wrong western rational mentality.”

The crux of the issue, however, is whether Palekar has registered a claim over ZBNF, either as copyright or a trademark since a patent is clearly out of the question in this case. When he insists that ZBNF will have to be changed to SPSF, will it be backed by any legal right or a moral claim?

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/agriculture/the-zero-budget-farming-discord-62003
 

HariPrasad-1

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This Farmer Won the Padmashri for His Zero Budget Natural Farming Model

by Guest ContributorMay 22, 2016, 10:45 am

After witnessing the harmful effects of chemical farming, Subash Palekar, a B.Sc in Agriculture, developed the Zero Budget Natural Farming model.

‘Krishi ka Rishi’ is the title farming communities across the country have bestowed on Subhash Palekar. This agriculturist is the creator of the ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ model, a method that has been creating waves in the farming community in India.

Palekar was born on 2nd February, 1949 in Belora, a small village in the district of Amravati, Maharastra. The son of a farmer, his interest in farming led him to pursue a B.Sc in Agriculture from Nagpur.

Subash Palekar
IMAGE SOURCE: YOUTUBE
Palekar made his way back to his hometown in 1972 where, armed with the newly acquired knowledge his degree had given him, he began to advice his father on modern techniques of farming and urged him to use pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This led to an increase in crop yield that lasted more than a decade.

By 1985, however, Palekar began to notice a drop in yield; one that only got worse with each harvest. Curious about the sudden change, he began to look into the reasons for the decline. Three years of intensive research led him to the conclusion that chemical farming was the culprit. Palekar learnt that the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides led to a decrease in the fertility of the soil, wrecked havoc on the ecosystem of the area and also led to long-term health problems for those who consumed the fruits, gains and vegetables harvested under such conditions.

Shocked by the harmful effects of chemical farming, Palekar began the hunt for less-destructive alternatives. Thus began the journey of Zero Budget Natural Farming in India.


IMAGE FOR REPRESENTATION ONLY. SOURCE: FLICKR
From 1986 to 1988, Palekar’s quest for natural farming techniques led him to the study of forest vegetation. It was here that he discovered the natural system at work in forests which allowed them to develop and nurture themselves, while maintaining healthy ecosystems. After careful research of the system, Palekar began to mimic the techniques he had witnessed, in his own farm. For a period of six years, from 1989 to 1995, he experimented and verified different techniques, before consolidating them into the ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ technique.

Zero Budget Natural Farming, as the name implies, is a method of farming where the cost of growing and harvesting plants is zero. This means that farmers need not purchase fertilizers and pesticides in order to ensure the healthy growth of crops.


IMAGE FOR REPRESENTATION ONLY. SOURCE: FLICKR
Below are some of key learnings from the Zero Budget Natural Farming method:

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It is believed that plants only receive 1.5% to 2% of their nutrient requirements from soil; the remaining is absorbed through water and air. Given that 98% of the nutrients do not come from soil, using fertilizers is not prudent.

We often come across huge trees in forests, their branches heavy with the weight of countless fruit despite the lack of fertilizers and pesticides. These trees are proof that plants can and do grow healthily without any chemical help.

The reason we do not witness the same in our farms is because the micro-organisms that convert raw nutrients into easy-to-digest form have been destroyed by the use of poisonous chemical fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides. Cultivation of soil by tractor has already proved to be detrimental to these micro-organisms.

Since these micro-organisms help convert nutrients into a digestible form that plants can absorb and use, it is critical to revive them in our farms. This can be done by using cow dung from local cows.


IMAGE FOR REPRESENTATION ONLY. SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA
Cow dung from local cows has proven to be a miraculous cure to revive the fertility and nutrient value of soil. One gram of cow dung is believed to have anywhere between 300 to 500 crore beneficial micro-organisms. These micro-organisms decompose the dried biomass on the soil and convert it into ready-to-use nutrients for plants.

Over six years of research, Palekar found that:

1. Only dung from local, Indian cows is effective on the soil. Dung from Jersey and Holstein cows is not as effective. If one is falling short of dung from local cows, one may use dung from bullocks or buffaloes.
2. Dung and urine of the black coloured Kapila cow is believed to be the most effective.
3. To get the most of the cow dung and urine, ensure that the dung is as fresh as possible and that the urine is as old as possible.
4. An acre of land requires 10 kilograms of local cow dung per month. Since the average cow gives 11 kilograms of dung a day, dung from one cow can help fertilize 30 acres of land.
5. Urine, jaggery and dicot flour can be used as additives.
6. The lesser milk the cow gives, the more beneficial its dung is towards reviving the soil.

More than 40 lakh farmers across the country have benefitted greatly from Palekar’s teachings and his method of natural farming. Palekar spends 25 days a month sharing his knowledge of farming through seminar, lectures, workshops and field visits. Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have also requested him to spend ten days a month in their states, in order to help their farmers develop healthy farming habits.

In 2016, in recognition of his work and the impact he was creating, the Government of India conferred Palekar with the prestigious Padamashri Award. Palekar also made history for being the first active farmer to receive the award.

Palekar’s Zero Budget Natural Farming has undoubtedly made an indelible mark on farming in India.

FEATURE IMAGE FOR REPRESENTATION ONLY. SOURCE: YOUTUBE, FLICKR
About the author: Nitin Chore is a mechanical engineer from Pune who loves to read and write inspiring stories about change-markers who have chosen unusual paths, or created their own.

https://www.thebetterindia.com/55881/zero-budget-natural-farming-subash-palekar/
 

HariPrasad-1

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Maharashtra village shows the way to deal with drought. This should be a model to deal with water scarcity across the country.

 

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