The Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) turned to Natural Farming, known as Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF)8, as a way of solving the multiple crises in agriculture. The GoAP have established “Rhythu Sadhikara Samstha” (RySS) which is an integrated institutional mechanism to promote the APCNF across the state. APCNF is based on Dr Subhash Palekar’s spiritual farming model, known as zero budget natural farming (ZBNF), which was developed on the principles of forests growth.9 However, RySS is contextualizing and improving the original ZBNF (henceforth referred as APCNF) model continuously. Two major improvements incorporated in APCNF in recent times are: (1) To overcome the shortage of Desi cows, RySS is encouraging and facilitating the use of cow-dung and urine of any livestock in the preparation of Beejamrutham, Ghana and Drava Jeevamrutham and Khashayams. (2) To protect the microbes in the soil, especially, during the hot summer months, RySS has incorporated the Pre-Monsoon Dry Sowing (PMDS), a novel method of growing crops, during the offseason/ hot summer months with very little soil moisture Continue Reading
Assessing the Impact of APCNF Final Report 2021-22
