Relevance of Natural Farming in Present Scenario of Bihar, India: A Review

Abstract

Agriculture is holistic approach of science. It is convergence of field crops, horticultural crops, forestry, animal science, poultry, microbiology, soil science etc. If we pick one subject it will be injustice to the science of cultivation. The Father of modern-day natural farming is Masanobu Fukuoka. This is also known as Fukuoka Method. Do-nothing farming or Natural way of farming is an ecological farming approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008). Natural farming, also known as ‘Prakritic Kheti’ is a climate resilient tool that can save humans and Agro-ecological system, Asha Rani et al. [1] advocated the natural farming in India. Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Sabour Bhagalpur, Bihar has started natural farming practices from 2018. We have organised awareness programme in 12 villages among 2000 farmers. KVK Sabour adopted a Village in Raipura, Goradih, where we have made a benchmark survey animal particularly Deshi cow. Bihar is an Agriculture based state. Focus of this survey was how many Deshi cow was existing their and what was the utility of cow dung and cow urine. Most of them are using cow-dung as fuel for making food and cow urine was drained out. We have organised off campus and on campus training programme for Raipura villagers, demonstrated the technology to make ‘Jivamrit, Bijamrit, Ghanjivamrit etc.’ The result of this awareness is that they have started the collection of cow urine and using cow dung to make ‘Ghanjivamrit, Jivamrit’ and different products. The purpose of this work was to conduct a simple survey and review the relevance of natural farming in the present day when the cattle number is in decline. Findings indicated natural farming to be impossible without desi cow, as every component is related to the species.