Will Zero Budget Natural Farming address India’s complex farming and food demands? Leo Saldanha https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/will-zero-budget-natural-farming-address-india-s-complex-farming-and-food-demands-158329
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advocacy of Zero Budget Natural Farming comes after the controversial farm laws were repealed. But further critical examination is crucial.
Prior to the introduction of the controversial farm laws, Jaswinder Singh of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) had expressed concerns over Narendra Modi’s 2018 ‘Doubling Farm Incomes’ policy saying it “is only going to deepen the agricultural crisis in the country” and that “farmers will not be given the complete benefits and will merely become pawns in the name of globalising the nature of Indian agriculture”.
When Modi chose to advocate ZBNF, he was basing it on AP’s experience as he was on Niti Aayog’s advocacy of “Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Programme (BPKP) under centrally sponsored scheme- Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY)” which the agency claims is “aimed at promoting traditional indigenous practices which reduces externally purchased inputs….based on on-farm biomass recycling with major stress on biomass mulching, use of on-farm cow dung-urine formulations; periodic soil aeration and exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs”.
Given that the AP model is pitched entirely on foreign direct investment, and of export of sovereign farm information to foreign corporations for verification, serious questions arise about implications to sovereignty of seeds, agrobiodiversity and associated traditional knowledge. It is also not clear how this transition is transformative and beneficial to farmers as a centralised initiative against the constitutional scheme.
If AP’s CRZBNF model is what the Prime Minister is advocating, it must be seen for what it is: corporatised, financialised and commodified, based on foreign direct investment and easy transfer of farm information and produce globally, the very thing farmers have opposed the farm laws for.