With Prime Minister Narendra Modi entrusting him the responsibility to lead Governors in expanding natural farming, Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Devvrat will coordinate and prepare a framework for making zero-budget natural farming feasible across the country.
Zero budget means without using any credit or without spending any money on purchased inputs, while natural farming stands for farming in accordance with nature and without the use of chemical fertilisers.
A government spokesman on Tuesday quoted the Governor as saying that natural farming departments have been set up in agricultural and horticultural universities in the hill state and instructions given to Ph.D students to work with the farmers in the field and share their research work with them.
Devvrat said the state government had taken the modality of zero budget natural farming seriously and made a budgetry provision of Rs 25 crore this fiscal.
Devvrat attended the 49th Governors' Conference held in New Delhi on June 4 and 5 where he discussed in detail the implementation of the centrally-sponsored schemes in the state, quality education at the university level, skill development, internal security and new initiatives through the Raj Bhavan.
In his address at the meet, the Governor said Himachal Pradesh was seriously working on the Prime Minister's resolve to double the income of the farmers by 2022.
The Governor's book entitled 'Zero- Budget Natural Farming' is being distributed free of cost among Himachal farmers.
In a first in India, Andhra Pradesh launched on June 2 a scaled-out plan to transition six million farms/farmers who cultivate eight million hectares from conventional synthetic chemical agriculture to zero budget natural farming by 2024, thus making it India's first 100 per cent natural farming state.
The programme is a contribution towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on 'No Poverty', Clean Water and Sanitation', 'Responsible Consumption and Production' and 'Life on Land'.
--IANS
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