Natural Farming Practices in India: Its Adoption and Impact on Crop Yield and Farmers’ Income

Natural Farming (NF) is contemplated by its protagonist as one of the most potential crop cultivation methods to drastically cut down production costs by reducing dependence on market for purchase of critical inputs. Being considered as an agroecologically diverse farming practice, it brings hosts of ecological and social benefits, although, there are two school of thoughts- opposing each other on the efficacy of its practices. In order to better understand the practice followed in NF as well as the cost saving and income gain by the NF farmers, the study was undertaken in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh during January-June 2019 covering 55 and 124 NF-adopting farmers and 50 and 61 non- NF farmers in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, respectively. Though there are certain practices prescribed in natural farming, the most adopted practice is use of Jeevamritha, Beejamritha and other plant protection materials. Further, there is always scope for tweaking and innovation in these practices like Ghanajeevamritha, use of Azolla in paddy field or applying Jeevamritha through drip irrigation. Significant reduction in cost of cultivation of all the crops was observed. However, the effect on crop yield is not conclusive. NF-farmers in Karnataka harvested better yield in finger millet, but lower yield in paddy and sugarcane. While in Andhra Pradesh, yield advantage was visible in paddy. It was also observed that the NF-adopted farmers who applied farm yard manure harvested better crop yield than those who did not apply. Thus, natural farming may not look as yield enhancing farming practices, but definitely increases farmers’ income through cost reduction and long-term sustainability.