Tap bio-diversity in nature for better harvest

POLLACHI: Over 800 farmers from across the district have gathered to hear Subash Palekar on the merits of his method of doing agriculture, which he describes as zero budget natural farming. And, he holds them in a thrall while explaining the pitfalls of chemical fertilizers. Pointing to his experience with adivasi cultivators of central India, he narrates how the bio-diversity in the nature is itself sufficient to provide micro-nutrients for the cultivated crop.
Palekar, to begin with, was no evangelist of non-chemical fertilizer farming. Born in a family of agriculturalists in Vidarbha, he graduated from Nagpur Agricultural University. For over a decade from 1972, he cultivated his land and was deemed a successful farmer in the region. However, he realized that yield from his farm was on the decline as years went past. Experts advised him to increase the use of chemical fertilizers to make up for the loss of soil fertility. Palekar wasn't satisfied with the remedy.
That's when he went back to the drawing board and started questioning the "philosophy and principle of chemical farming". During his college days, Palekar had spent time with the tribals of Satpura and had noticed that they were entirely reliant on the forest to provide them with food. "They used no inputs. The bio-diversity of the plants was enough to provide them the micro nutrients," he recollected. After studying the merits and demerits of chemical farming for three years, Palekar was convinced that agriculture driven by chemical fertilisers was no solution. Now, he started to propagate his ideas by holding classes and writing. From 1988 to 1996 he toured the region holding classes and then started to edit a popular agricultural magazine, Baliraja.
Today, Palekar is almost a movement. He continues to take classes across India as well as in Sri Lanka and Nepal. Palekar believes there is a conspiracy in Indian farming and blames the fetiliser industry. He believes that the market for chemical fertilizers is exploiting the farmer.
Palekar differentiates his school of farming from organic farming. In organic farming, the inputs are expensive thus doubling the price of the product, he argues. In zero budget natural farming, the cost of production of the main crop is compensated by income from inter-crops, which also provided the micro-nutrients required for the growth of the main crop. In this method, Palekar claims that no inputs need to be purchased from the market place and the main crop will be a bonus crop. He argues that use of cow dung etc could help soil breakdown pre-existing nutrients into forms that would nourish crops.