The central sector funded project National Mission on Natural Farming has been implemented by 44 KVKs of the Zone since 2022-23. All the KVKs of Andhra Pradesh, 8 KVKs in Telangana, 12 KVKs from Tamil Nadu and 1 KVK from the UT of Puducherry are involved in the project. All the KVKs in the states of Gujarat, Himachal and AP are included in the project in view of the importance the respective state governments have been giving to natural farming in these states. A total of 425 KVKs are implementing the project in the entire country. The main focus of implementation of the project has been on training, field demonstrations and awareness programs during 2024-25. The KVKs implementing this project established natural farming blocks of about 2-5 ha area in their instruction farm, took farmers on exposure visits to the KVK, to nearby natural farming blocks of farmers, conducted method demonstrations on the production of natural farming inputs besides distribution of literature related to natural farming. They also conducted demonstrations on natural farming in crops of their choice during last year, the results of which are presented in this section.

The following are the achievements under the project during 2024-25. The KVKs conducted a total of 379 awareness programmes benefiting 13984 farmers on natural arming.

Achievements of the project during 2024-25

In the field demonstrations under natural farming of various crops, it was noticed that there was a reduction in the productivity during 2024-25 too. The reduction was in the range of 2.94 to 26.99 per cent across crops in comparison with inorganic method of cultivation. Similarly, there was decline in the cost of cultivation too in the range of 8.07 to 72.55. The results of these field demonstrations are presented in the following table.

Percentage change in cost of cultivation and productivity in natural farming demonstrations during 2024-25