VIJAYAWADA: After getting international applauds for Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), the State government has kept a target to achieve cent per cent ZBNF in AP in the coming six years.The government will organise a 10-day training programme near Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur district from December 8 to 17 to encourage farmers to take up ZBNF for getting good returns at lesser investment.
The training programme, to be conducted by Subhash Palekar, known as the father of ZBNF, will be attended by over 9,000 farmers from 3,100 villages in the State. In addition, about 500 people including agriculture department staff, farmers from other States and representatives from abroad will participate.
Speaking to mediapersons at the Interim Government Complex in Velagapudi on Tuesday, Special Chief Secretary (Agriculture and Civil Supplies) B Rajasekhar felt that though the green revolution helped the nation overcoming food grain crisis in the 1980s, agriculture land has lost fertility due to indiscriminate usage of fertilisers, pesticides and chemicals for getting high yield.
“Against such a backdrop, the government has decided to encourage ZBNF, which is beneficial to environment, farmers and public health. Our practices in ZBNF has already recognised by the United Nations, which invited Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to address the issue,” he said. Agriculture department adviser T Vijay Kumar said that farmers were getting good yield through ZBNF and exuded confidence that 60 lakh farmers from the State would adopt ZBNF.