ZBNF technique has been tested extensively and it does work, says Palekar

Subhash Palekar has been one of the oldest proponents of Zero Budget Natural Farming in India. He discusses techniques and their long-term impact on boosting crop yields and raising farm incomes, in an interview with Sanjeeb Mukherjee. Edited excerpts:
 
Could ZBNF be scaled up nationally? Questions are being raised on the technique’s efficacy.
 
I don’t know who is questioning the efficacy of ZBNF and its potential to be scaled up. This technique can very much be scaled up and used by all farmers in India but it won’t happen overnight or in the next two years. It will take time.

 

Five years back, Prime Minister Modi assured farmers of doubling their income by 2022. He gave this assurance with the hope that agricultural scientists would develop such techniques. In the past five years, has any scientist developed a single such technique?
 
It was then that NITI Aayog, under instruction from the PM, started looking for technologies through which this could be done, and simultaneously reduce global warming. And, zeroed in on ZBNF. When the whole world is looking to reduce its carbon footprint, who wants to increase the same by spreading the use of chemical farming in India?

 
There are complaints that farmers who adopted ZBNF reverted to conventional farming, as the returns weren’t good enough after the first few years.
 
Absolutely wrong. Anyone who has adopted my technique starts getting a return which is higher than in organic farming methods and much more than chemical-based farming, from the first year itself. There are models running in various places which are showing such returns and are sustainable.
 
If your technique is so good, why hasn’t it been adopted so far by significant numbers of farmers?
 
What is the way out if we need to double our production, as population is increasing but availability of land is limited? Farmers are actually leaving farming, as chemical farming is not remunerative. More, who would want to die due to cancer or diabetes by eating chemicals-laced food? All these problems are due to the poisonous food we eat. The solution to all these lies in natural farming.

 
There are questions on ZBNF. Many say proper studies haven’t been done on the technique and its efficacy in various agro-climatic zones.
 
All those spreading these rumours should be sent to GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in Pantnagar (Uttarakhand) or Himachal Pradesh Agriculture University, Palampur. Or the ICAR, where a lot of works and field studies covering all aspects are being done on ZBNF. We have scientific evidence of the efficacy of this technique for all farmers.
 
Your expectations from the central government, now that there seems to be all-round interest in this technique?
 

Well, the government can’t make a law to force people to adopt ZBNF. This is a democracy. What the government will do is that it will offer this technique as an alternative to farmers, compared to organic farming and chemical farming. Then, it is up to the farmers to see which is most beneficial for them.