Art of Living to hold two-day summit on ‘Natural Farming’ in Bengaluru

This May, NGO Art of Living will host a national conference on ‘natural farming’.

BENGALURU: This May, NGO Art of Living will host a national conference on ‘natural farming’.

Union Minister of Agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh, Founder and CEO of Javara Indigenous, Ibu Helianti Hilman and international cow-breeding expert Gopalbhai Sutharia, amongst other pioneers in the field of agriculture will be speaking at the two-day Art of Living’s Natural Farming Summit set to take place at the Art of Living International Centre from May 9th in Bengaluru.

Natural farming is an ecological farming approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer and philosopher, introduced in his 1975 book The One-Straw Revolution. Fukuoka described his way of farming as shizen noho in Japanese.

It is also referred to as the Fukuoka Method, the natural way of farming or do-nothing farming. The title doesn’t refer to lack of effort, but to the avoidance of manufactured inputs and equipment.

Delegates will be joining in from institutes like Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Agricultural boards, advocacy groups, field experts, bureaucrats, farmers, educators, ministries across the country and also from South Africa, Ukraine and Sri Lanka.

Asked how natural farming is different from AOL’s natural farming, Uma Maheshwari, apex member of Sri Sri Institute of Agricultural Sciences and Technology Trust, at a press conference here said, “Cow dung and cow urine retains moisture in the soil. We have developed fallow, arid and drought affected lands into cultivable lands with cow-based products. We will teach farmers that cow dung and cow urine are potent products.”

The summit will have a session on importance of indigenous cow, preparation of bio-fertilisers like jeevamruth, bijamruth and bio-pesticides like neemastra and brahmaastra, production of A2 milk by indigenous cows, and soil reclamation of fallow lands using these cows, among other sessions.

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