Saturday, April 5, 2008

Zero Budget Farming- Bharat's need of the hour



Subhash Palekar Raises Agriculture to Spiritual Levels

For over sixty years, Indian agriculture was in a slumber. Our lands were scandalized by an unknown thing called as synthetic fertlizer. This was done to help the farmer get a 'better' harvest.

As the farmer started using it, he immediately noticed that, his soil had become infertile and could no longer bear crops for the next season. He was advised to add more and more fertilizer to the soil to compensate for the nutrient loss. Soon he was faced with another threat. The plants that grew with fertilizer needed pesticides. Soon, he started using these pesticides, which are deadly poisons. He noticed that the pests had become resistant to these chemicals as time went by. He was puzzled.

Our farmer forgot the ancient lesson that the soil HAD LIFE. He forgot that there were natural laws that governed the soil which his ancestors had obeyed from time immemorial. By thus obeying the laws , they had taken bumper harvests and had kept the land well cared for and transferred the land intact for posterity.

Subhash Palekar

It was at this time that a great mind set out to work in this field. He himself was a graduate of Agricultural science from a 'modern university'. He set out to work in his field using the British devised ways of Fertlisers and Pesticides and became an utter failure. He also ruined his land.

Then he set out to research on how our ancestors did so well in Agriculture without any of these chemicals. He consulted the Vedas, and the ancient wisdom literature. The result is a revolutionary, path breaking method, which Sri Subhash calls as 'Zero Budget Natural Farming'. Sri Subhash tried his method in his own soil and replicated it in various other fields tasting success every time.

An inspired Sri Subhash set out to teach this method to his countrymen. He has so far conducted not less than 1000 workshops, all heavily attended, to spread this new way of life for farmers.

The fundamental concept in Sri Subhash's work is that
1. Soil does not need nutrients to be added.
2. The soil has micro organisms which GENERATE NUTRIENTS for the soil.
3. It is possible to revive a fertliser damaged soil back to the natural ways.
4. That the new method require no money to do Agriculture.

Fascinating, is it not ? Read on for some more.

Sri Subhash says the pivot of 'Zero Budget Natural Farming' is the desi cow. He says that the desi cow's Urine, Cow dung and Milk have all the qualities required to rejuvenate the soil. Just ONE desi cow, says Sri Subhash, is all that is required to maintain a 30 acre Farm. He laments that the Desi- Jersi hybrid cows are of no use in his scheme of things.

What a sad thing ? The desi (country) cow is now has such a dwindling population that we need to revive them on a war footing. I wondered why the hybrid Jersi cow is unfit. A publication of 'Govardan', a voluntary organisation for Cow protection, says that the high yield Jersi was produced by crossing a wild pig and an Australian cow breed !

Sri Subhash has some formulas to revive the soil. One is 'Jeevamrutam'. This is not a replacement for Fertlizer , he says. Jeevamrutam is only a catalyst for the soil to generate its nutrients. He says that the 'organic manure','earthworm manure' are fads and are another recipe for disaster.

Sri Subhash condemns the university taught concept of burning the leftover plants after harvest. He says that these are to be left over in the soil itself by turning them over into the soil. This process of 'Mulching' helps the soil prepare its own manure.

And what about pests ? Subhash maintains that a naturally grown plant fights pests. But the plants in transit in chemical ravaged field can be protected by simply prepared 'natural pesticides' which arwe usually buttermilk, pepper and such simple combinations.

The Government Sponsored Chemical Mafia

A govermental survey states that the fertliser subsidy alone was abot Rs 13,000.00 crores in the year 2000. Add to this the pesticide subsidy and the farmer's burden. A report says that the pesticide business in India is the fourth largest in the world! Imagine what would have happened if the money is spent on raising desi cows, strengthening ponds and lakes, and protecting the village fiorests !

There are some criminal agricultural scientists who sit and lord over every governmental commission on Agriculture. These are the very people who are in hand in glove with the synthetic mafia and have been the cause of so much decline in production. Sri Subhash has alleged that our country imports foodgrains of about 5 million tonnes every year. This fact is not known to many Indians. The governments cheats here also.

Recently, a central minister went on record stating that poor Indians are eating more and this is causing problems. It is no wonder with such people at the helm, our Agriculture remains without policy.

Follow Subhash ji

But, what I admire Sri Subhash is for his unassuming nature and his patriotism in spreading the truth to his countrymen. He calls his method a spiritual farming, a saadhna.

I salute the spirit of a great son of Bharat, who is not afraid to speak the truth.

Jai Bharat , Jai Sanatana Dharma
Venkat
My other blog sites
Bharat's Hoary Vedic and Agamic Tradition
Sanatana Dharma- Religion forever
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Bhagavad Gita Blog







15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very good post venkat.. Infact, what phalegar is doing is a true revolution in farming.

He is a new hope for modern india..

Anonymous said...

Very good job Venkat. You may visit the blogspot http://spiritualfarming.blogspot.com which has also covered this subject in detail.

Good luck

Anonymous said...

Shri Subashji is a messiah for the small and marginal farmers of India. He has systamatised the traditional techniques of farming and has made it available to the vast majority through his three books. We should do everything possible to popularise this economical and effective method of farming. We are already following this method in our farm and has found the same very effective. We have launched a blogspot to cover this technique exclusively under the name http://spiritualfarming.blogsport.com.

best regards
p.s.nathan

P.S. Nathan said...

The name of our blogspot is as follows which got misspelled by me when I typed last:-

http://spiritualfarming.blogspot.com

and it is not blogsport as mentioned by me in my earlier comment.

Anonymous said...

The name of our blogspot is as follows which got misspelled by me when I typed last:-

http://spiritualfarming.blogspot.com

and it is not blogsport as mentioned by me in my earlier comment.

Durai said...

Today I heard Mr. Subash Palekar speak on his zero budget farming. India's population is going to double in another 40 to 45 years. Our food production has to increase to match this growth of the popualtion. For that we need a much bigger green revolution based scientific research and resources. The zero budget farming will not be able to help us to fullfil our requirements. Zero input means zero output !!! Mr. Palekar's claim that a desi cow's urine is better than a Jersey cow's has to be proved scientifically with data. The quality of cow's dung and urine very much depends on the intake of the cow. The digestive metabolism of desi cow and Jersey or Holstein cow is not very much different. Moreover the Jersey and Holstein cows you find in India are only cross breeds between desi and foreign breeds. Another of his claim that one cow's dung is sufficient for 30 acres is little far fetched. And the claim that human urine is better medicine is another attention seeking folklore without scientific evidence. The need of the hour is not zero budget farming but better agricultural practices, techniques and methods to feed the population of almost 2billion people in 2050. High production with productivity is the need of the hour.

Dr. B. Duraiswamy

Anonymous said...

Dear Duraiswamy,

You can see a detailed study about zero budget farming by By R.Yogananda Babu, Faculty (Agriculture), ANSSIRD, Mysore

http://www.atimysore.gov.in/PDF/action_research1.pdf

We better atleast listen to new ideas before we close the door for them !

Unknown said...

dear doresamy,
please visit some of the farms adopted to this method.
please check and compare the pesticide residue in the products
compare the investments and returns

then comment.
jayanth

Anonymous said...

I find very interesting that the pesticides business is amongst the 4th largest in the world! You never know what riches you can make from dirt :)

Durai said...

Dear Jay:
Please give me the names and locations of the farms that adopted zero budget farming and made financial success and commercial success. In a small scale and uncontrolled experimental conditions, people claim lots of new and exotic discoveries which will fail under rigorous and controlled studies and verifications. Few years back, a gentleman claimed to have invented "Bio (organic) Petrol" from the roots of a secret plant. Later he was found to be a fraud. But lots of people including government gave money to him before ascertaining truth from fraud. Such is our world. So please don't fall prey to these con men.

Dr. B. Duraiswamy

Prabhu said...

Attn, Dr. B. Duraiswamy,

Need not to compare Mr. Palekar with Ramar Pillai, here Mr. Palekar is not interested to sell anything, he just try to adopt a method.

And the famous tamil magazine vikatan published many articles so far with complete details, check it out pasumai vikatan.

നാരായണന്‍ നമ്പൂതിരി said...

Dr. B. Duraiswamy seems to be one of those "Agricultural University" brand Ramar Pillais who doesn't do any practical farming and think that they knows every thing under the sun due to the "Dr.". Actually these people poisoned our food and destroyed our ancient farming method and traditional seeds by taking bribes from chemical/fertilizer industry. If green revolution farce is known to people not only his job is in peril but people will beat these traitors. Many agricultural scientists like Masanobu Fukuoka had scientifically proved chemical farming and the false propaganda that it can increase yield to be a lie. Duraiswamy brand scientific research I personally know is cooking up data for pesticide/herbicide companies to substantiate their claims. Sri. Palekar has nothing to gain like Ramar by spreading the message of Zero Budget farming. However, Duraiswamy will be a loser if people really understands that! Who is the Ramar pillai!? Gandhian Dharam Pal has compiled documents collected by Britishers during their rule to prove that 18th century agriculture in Chengalpett district gave yield comparable or even more than "chemical farming" disproving Duraiswamy's claims. He will not understand what we tell as he is pretending like that.

jitendra said...

it was great we must return to our vedas and ancient methods as india was very much developed in ancient time we are responsible to hinder our progress.i really appreciate subhash palekar for this god bless him and may many bhartoans follow him

Unknown said...

The film takes a critical look at corporate control of our food supply, and how those making key decisions about how our food is grown, processed and marketed, are often more concerned with cutting corners to increase their profits than with the health and safety of the consumer.

Tyrone Hayes

Rob said...

I think Dr. Doraisamy should atleast get a copy of Shri Palekar's books and read them before commenting. With the books you will get a database of individuals practising this system in south india - i think there are some 2000 names in it. Visit and see that it makes sense.