Cabinet nod for Rs 2 481cr National Mission on Natural farming to cover 7.5 lakh ha

    New Delhi, Nov 25 (PTI) The government on Monday announced a national mission to promote natural farming among one crore farmers in 7.5 lakh hectare (ha) with an outlay of Rs 2,481 crore over the next two years.
    The decision taken in the Cabinet meeting, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aims to initiate natural farming in 7.5 lakh hectare through 15,000 clusters to be set up in willing panchayats.
    "There is a need to improve the quality of soil and maintain the health of the people with chemical-free food...National Mission on Natural Farming is a path-breaking decision," Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said in a media briefing after the meeting.
    The standalone central scheme with a budget outlay of Rs 2,481 crore will cover 1 crore farmers across the country till 2025-26, he added.
    The minister said natural farming will be promoted on a mission mode after successful experiments in 2019-20 and 2022-23.
    Currently, around 10 lakh hectare are under natural farming throughout the country, he noted.
    On the implementation of the mission, the minister said the government will select willing panchayats for the development of 15,000 natural farming clusters and encourage setting up 10,000 need-based bio-input resources centres to supply natural farming inputs with Rs 1 lakh as seed capital assistance.
    Around 18.75 lakh farmers will be trained/supported in a batch of 30 at agriculture universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and 200 local natural farming institutions. At the block level, 30,000 Krishi Sakhis/community resource persons will be deployed for awareness generation, mobilisation and handholding of willing farmers in the clusters.
    An online digital platform -- with a geo-tagged database of practising farmers, farms, soil health, input costs, etc -- will be set up to monitor and track the progress.
    The mission objective will be to focus on promoting nature-based sustainable farming systems, reducing dependency on externally purchased inputs, improving soil health and reducing input costs.
    It will popularise integrated agriculture-animal husbandry models and establish scientifically supported common standards and easy farmer-friendly certification procedures for naturally grown chemical-free produce, besides creating and promoting a single national brand for such produce.
    The focus will also be on strengthening on-farm agro-ecological research and knowledge-based extension capacity of agri-institutions like ICAR, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, and agriculture universities, etc.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)