Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF)

✅ Natural farming is a system where the laws of nature are applied to agricultural practices. 

✅This method works along with the natural biodiversity of each farmed area, encouraging the complexity of living organisms, both plants, and animals that shape each particular ecosystem to thrive along with food plants. 

✅The word ‘budget’ refers to credit and expenses, thus the phrase 'Zero Budget' means without using any credit, and without spending any money on purchased inputs. 'Natural farming' means farming with Nature and without chemicals. 

▪️Features of ZBNF

 

✅The premise of ZBNF is that soil has all the nutrients plants need. To make these nutrients available to plants, we need the intermediation of microorganisms. For this, “four wheels of ZBNF” have been suggested:  

🔸 Bijamrit is the microbial coating of seeds with formulations of cow urine and cow dung 

🔸Jivamrit is the enhancement of soil microbes using an inoculum of cow dung, cow  

urine, and jaggery 

🔸Mulching is the covering of soil with crops or crop residues which creates humus and encourages the growth of friendly microorganisms 

🔸Waaphasa is the building up of soil humus to increase soil aeration 

✅According to ZBNF principles, plants get 98% of their supply of nutrients from the air, water, and sunlight. And the remaining 2% can be fulfilled by good quality soil with plenty of friendly microorganisms. (Just like in forests and natural systems) 

✅The system requires cow dung and cow urine obtained from Indian breed cow only. Desi cow is apparently the purest as far as the microbial content of cow dung, and urine  

goes. 

✅ In ZBNF, multi-cropping is encouraged over single crop method. 

▪️Similarities between Organic Farming and ZBNF: 

✅Organic and natural farming both systems discourage farmers from using any chemical fertilizers, pesticides on plants and in all agricultural practices. 

✅ Both farming methods encourage farmers to use local breeds of seeds, and native  

varieties of vegetables, grains, pulses and other crops. 

✅Both farming methods promote nonchemical and homemade pest control methods. 

▪️Differences between Organic Farming and ZBNF: 

✅In organic farming, organic fertilizers and manures like compost, vermicompost, cow  

dung manure, etc. are used and added to farmlands from external sources. While in  

natural farming decomposition of organic matter by microbes and earthworms is encouraged right on the soil surface itself, which gradually adds nutrition in the soil, over the period. 

✅ Organic farming requires basic agro practices like ploughing, tilling, mixing of manures, weeding, etc. to be performed. While in natural farming there is no ploughing, no tilting of soil and no fertilizers, and no weeding is done just the way it would be in natural ecosystems. 

✅Organic farming is still expensive due to the requirement of bulk manures, and it has an ecological impact on surrounding environments; whereas, natural agriculture is an extremely low-cost farming method, completely molding with local biodiversity. 

✅Subhash Palekar, who has coined the term ZBNF is training farmers in different states regarding the techniques of ZBNF. But experts claim that yield is less in ZBNF.

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