ZERO BUDGET NATURAL FARMING: A STUDY ON FARMERS’ PERCEPTION IN NORTH KARNATAKA
Loading...
Date
2020
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ICAR-NDRI, KARNAL
Abstract
Agriculture production system have started evolving since aeons and is still evolving and
undergoing a series of structural changes. Till the time of the phenomenon called as “Green
Revolution”, our agriculture production system was nature-based. Green revolution,
revolutionised our food production system through usage of chemical fertilisers,
insecticides, pesticides, etc. As a consequence of indiscriminate use of chemical inputs, we
are facing the loss of soil-biological eco-system, loss of bio-diversity, extinction of
Indigenous Technical Knowledge, etc. Climate change is the new major challenge to the
existing ones. In order to face these challenges, the upgraded version of nature-based
farming, like organic farming, natural farming, permaculture, zero budget natural farming,
etc have evolved, of late; and their capacity to revive the lost nature has been widely
acknowledged. Keeping the above arguments in mind, the present study on “Zero Budget
Natural Farming: A Study on Farmers’ Perception in North Karnataka” was undertaken,
while especially emphasizing on the concept of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), as
propagated by people like Mr. Subhas Palekar in India. As of now the state of Karnataka
has been implementing scheme focusing on ZBNF; and that is why, the state of Karnataka
was selected, purposively for this study. Further, two districts from Northern part of
Karnataka, namely Belagavi and Haveri were selected, randomly. The respondents were
categorised into three categories: Planners, Adopters, Non-adopters. Planners were the
farmers who got registered themselves in ZBNF programme and trying ZBNF in their field.
Adopters had minimum of 3 years’ experience in ZBNF and non-adopters were not
practising ZBNF. From each district, 25 respondents were selected, randomly, from each
category of respondent. Accordingly, it accounted for 75 respondents from each district.
Hence, a total of 150 respondents were selected for the purpose of data collection through
semi-structured interview-schedule. Thereafter, the collected data were analysed through
appropriate statistical tools, in order to draw meaningful interpretations. A large number of
adopters were following reduced tillage method (86.00%), beejamrutha (88.00%), manures
(100.00%) as source of nutrient management. Whereas, A large number of planners were
following intensive tillage method (82.00%), beejamrutha (40.00%), manures (86.00%) as
source of nutrient management. Commission agents were the major marketing channel used
by both planners (84.00%) and adopters (78.00%). Nearly half (48.00%) of the planners
had medium level of perception towards zero budget natural farming, whereas, most
(44.00%) of the adopters had high level of perception. But equal per cent (40.00%) of nonadopters
had low and middle level of perception towards zero budget natural farming. The
characteristics like size of land holding, herd-size and source of information were
significantly correlated with the perception level of the planners, adopters and non-adopters
towards zero budget natural farming. The characteristics like education, farming
experience, annual income, social participation, extension contact, extension participation,
mass media exposure and innovativeness were found to be significantly correlated with the
perception level of the planners and adopters towards ‘zero budget natural farming’. Lack
of information on preparation and use of asthras was perceived as the most serious
constraint. The second-most constraint experienced by the respondents happened to be
timely unavailability of materials for preparation of ZBNF inputs. To conclude, ZBNF has
the potentiality to revive the lost diversity of the farm land as well as to support the farmers
economically with less input cost and greater output over a period of time.