Zero budget organic farming, espoused by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech, may be advisable for poor farmers but it is quite a difficult proposition at this stage in cotton rich places like the former composite Adilabad district.
For one, the soils which have lost their natural nutritional value owing to injudicious use of chemicals over the last few decades will not support organic farming unless their vitality is renewed, which is a tough task in itself.
“The market is very far. I am left with five quintals each of sama (little millet) and bhadi (kodo millet) from last year’s harvest,” revealed Athram Bheem Rao, a Raj Gond tribal farmer from Mallapur village in Indervelli mandal of Adilabad district.
There are over 80 small and marginal farmers in this village who still cultivate millets and pulses for their own consumption and have become foodgrain self sufficient since the last four years. The foodgrain is cultivated in organic method though the farmers use chemicals for the cotton or soyabean crop which is grown in two-thirds of their land.