Farmers told to win Nobel in zero budget natural farming

Vijayawada: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said that a person in Andhra Prade-sh should achieve a Nobel Prize in Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF).

He said that Andhra Pradesh is ahead in natural farming practices and the world is looking towards the state to know the natural farming practices being observed here. He appealed to the farmers to extend cooperation for making AP into a Zero Budget Natural Farming state, even before 2024.

Addressing a capacity building programme for ZBNF farmers and interacting with them at Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium here on Thurs-day, the Chief Minister stressed the need for certification of natural farming products to provide value addition in international market.

He said the technology should be used to get traceability of farming products and the products should be linked with improvement of the health of those consuming the products.

Stating that natural fa-rming is an only alternative of future needs, the Chief Minister said that five lakh hectares of land would be brought under natural farming this year.

The Chief Minister said that the presentation he made on ZBNF at the United Nations Organisation recently got the attention of world countries and several countries are looking forward to know the natural farming practices of AP.

He said that natural fa-rming will help in soil improvement and also improve the health of pe-ople, with no sign of pesticides’ residue in food production. He said that the state government would extend cooperation for natural farming practices.

Several farmers practicing Zero Budget Natural Farming explained their experiences and achievements in natural farming. A former IT professional gave up his profession on his mother’s request and opted natural farming. The IT professional, Prasanna of Ram-anapeta of Tiruvur mandal in Krishna district, explained how he applied technology to natural far-ming to get value additi-on. He said that stabilisation of price is essential for continuous demand of organic natural products.

Another farmer Papa Rao of Guntur district explained about how he is cultivating paddy seeds through natural farming as a tenant farmer with three acres of land.  A software professional N. Parthasarathy of Anantapur district, who gave up his profession for practicing ZBNF from 2013, explained about how he is marketing the natural farming products of over 500 farmers of his region in Bengaluru, usi-ng the social media platform. He said that to provide branding for their products and to provide value addition to their pr-oducts, they floated Ana-nta Naturals Company. end-of