Subhash Palekar

Krishi ka rishi – This is how Subhash Palekar is known to farmers community across India. This trained agriculturist is the pioneer of ‘Zero budget natural farming’ in India. His suggested farming philosophy is somewhat similar to the one advocated by Japanese Natural Farming expert Late Masanobu Fukuoka.

Background: Born in farming family from small village named ‘Belora’ in Amravati district of Maharashtra on 2^nd-February’1949.

Education: BSC (Agriculture) from Nagpur.

After completing BSC (Agriculture) from Nagpur way back in 1972, he encouraged his father to adopt modern way farming using pesticides & chemical fertilizers. This modern technique resulted into increased crop yield for over a decade until 1985. But, thereafter he noticed continuous fall in the yield which surprised him & he started researching the reason for the declination in crop yield. After 3 years of experimentation & research, he reached to the conclusion that; chemical farming is not sustainable method as it reduces the fertility of soil, has the side effect of chemicals on consumption of fruits/grains/vegetables & has anti-effect on natural carrier of ecosystem like worms, microbes, bacteria, flies, honeybees etc.  This is how, his journey for the quest of alternative method of farming started.  

Turning point in life: In his own farm, use of pesticides & fertilizers increased crop yield for over a decade, but thereafter resulted in to continuous declination, which made him question method of chemical farming & his quest for alternate farming method began. 

During 1986-88 he studied the forest vegetation & found that, there is a self developing, self nourishing and totally self-reliant natural system in the forest, by which all the vegetation and ecosystem is in existence without any human intervention. He studied this natural system and verified those natural processes of the forest on his farm for six years, during 1989 to1995. After six years of verified research work, he developed the technique of ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’.

Philosophy of Zero budget natural farming:

Zero Budget Natural Farming means, the production cost will be zero for all the crops. In the Zero Budget Natural Farming, nothing has to be purchased from outside. All things required for the growth of the plant are available around the root zone of the plants. There is no need to add anything from outside. Our soil is prosperous & full of nutrients. How much nutrients the crop takes from the soil? Only 1.5 to 2.0 %, remaining 98 to 98.5% nutrients are taken from air, water & solar energy. If science says, that 98% crop body is constituted by air and water, then where is the need to add the fertilizers from the outside?

In the forest or on the bunds of our farm, there are huge trees of Mango, Tamarind or Plum with uncountable quality fruits, without any application of chemical or fertilizers, insecticides, without any cultivation by tractor, without irrigation. That means, for the plants to grow and to give the production there is no necessity of adding from outside.

However, in our farm these nutrients are not readily available, because the micro-organisms (which convert these nutrients from raw to usefull form) are destroyed by means of poisonous chemical fertilizers, insecticides, weedicides and cultivation by the tractor. If these nutrient converters are destroyed, then how the roots will get the nutrients in the ready to use form? That means, we have to re-establish these micro-organisms in the soil.

How it can be done? - By applying the cow dung of our local cow. The cow dung of the local cow is a miraculous culture. As housewife add a spoon of curd (culture) to the pot full of milk and whole milk gets converted to curd. Likewise, the local cow dung is a culture. One gram of cow dung contains about 300 to 500 crore beneficial effective microbes. These micro-organisms decompose the dried biomass on the soil and convert it into nutrients readily available for the plants.

How much cow dung is needed for one-acre land? He had done research on this for six years & came up with following theories.

1.    Only cow dung of our local cow is effective & not of Jersey or Holstein. If it is not available in sufficient quantity, we can mix half cow dung and half the dung of bullock or buffalo, but not of Jersey or Holstein in any case.

2.    The cow dung and urine of black colored Kapila cow is most effective.

3.    The cow dung should be used as fresh as possible and the urine as old as possible. It is more effective.

4.    One local cow gives on an average about 11 Kg of cow dung. For 1 acre land, only 10 kilograms of local cow dung is sufficient per month. So, for 1 acre one day’s cow dung is enough. That means 1 month cow dung is enough for 30 acres.

5.    Use of urine, jaggery (as sweeteners are secreted from the roots of plants in forest to attract the microbes & insects like ants) & dicot flour in different proportions as additives.

6.    The cow that gives more milk, its dung and urine is less effective and which gives less milk, its dung and urine is more effective.

Laurel: Mr. Palekar is conferred with prestigious Padmashri in 2016, being the first practicing farmer in the history of this award.

In a month, he devotes almost 25 days in sharing his technique of natural farming through seminars, lectures, workshops, field visits etc. So far, he has reached around 40 Lakhs farmers across India, out of which 3/4^th are majorly from south India ie, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, kerala etc. Mr. Chandrababu Naidu & Ms. Jayalalitha have personally requested him to be in their state for 10 days/month each for benefits of farmers practising natural farming.

But, ironically his home state Maharashtra has not even taken a note of his noble work, in spite of receiving Padmashri for the same. Hope, we will understand the importance of 'natural farming' ourselves, instead of hammered by West on us, as in case of our own 'Yoga' & 'Ayurved'.

Source: Aadhyatmik sheti (Philosophy & techniques of Spiritual farming) by Subhash Palekar.