Natural farming need of the hour: Venkaiah Naidu

The Union Minister addresses the inaugural session of the eight-day training programme organised by save

​Hyderabad: Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday termed Zero Budget Spiritual Farming (ZBNF) as another freedom movement – a movement for agricultural freedom.

He was speaking at the inaugural session of the eight-day training programme for trainers in natural farming, organised by Society for Awareness and Vision on Environment (SAVE) at Shamshabad.

“I extend moral support for the ZBNF, propounded and being spread relentlessly by Subhash Palekar. I salute his selfless and tireless work aimed at the welfare of the farmers,” Naidu said.

Though there was nothing new in the theory advanced by Palekar, it required courage to question the ill-effects of chemical farming that had been showing its adverse effects on Indian agriculture, he said.

“We are getting all sorts of new and unheard diseases because of the consumption of the food grains, vegetables and fruits produced using modern methods of farming which uses chemicals extensively. Only traditional system of farming can address this growing menace,” he said.

“The nature gives people everything undiluted. But people have polluted and diluted everything. Time has come to go back to the roots of Indian culture to preserve and protect nature and thereby protect the health of the people. If we protect the nature, it will protect us,” Naidu said.

He also said it was a matter of pride to know that 60 lakh farmers across the country had adopted zero budget spiritual farming. “India has abundant knowledge but the need of the hour is to bring it out through suitable policies and put it to use in the interest of the nation.

There is a need to increase government spending on agriculture because agriculture today not is profitable due to increasing cost of production because of chemical based farming.

Hence, there is an urgent need to promote natural systems of farming native to India,” he said. The Minister also appealed to the media to take the responsibility of spreading the knowledge of agriculture.

Speaking on the occasion, spiritual leader Tridandi Chinna Jeeyar Swami said serving every living being treating it as service to god should be the motive of every man or woman because god was present in every living being.

Speaking on the occasion, ZBNF proponent, Subhash Palekar said, “We should introspect whether we are living for the downtrodden, hungry and people in suffering or for the thugs who plunder the natural resources and thrive at the cost of poor people.”

“Green Revolution has helped select foreign countries whose economy is based entirely on industrial sector. Their industrial produce such as fertilisers and pesticides, genetically modified seeds are sold in India due to which farmers became completely dependent on foreign companies for everything,” Palekar said.

Advisor to the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Vijay Kumar, NABARD officials, My Home Group of Companies chairman Jupally Rameswar Rao and others spoke on the occasion.

About 3,000 farmers and representatives of NGOs from the two Telugu States, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu are taking part in the eight-day training programme.