Prime Minister Narendra Modi will next week formally launch a ₹2,481 crore programme aimed at promoting sustainable farming on 750,000 hectares of land and increasing the income of 10 million farmers, a senior government official told ET.
Conceived by the Niti Aayog and run by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, the National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) is a centrally sponsored programme. The central government is contributing ₹1,584 crore towards the scheme with states accounting for ₹897 crore, the official said.
While the formal inauguration is on August 23, registration of farmers for the programme has already started.
“The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare will run the scheme over the next two years and scale it up eventually depending on the success and utilisation of the budgetary allocation,” the official added.
The mission is designed to support farmers to reduce input cost of cultivation and dependency to externally purchased inputs.
The plan is to implement it in 15,000 clusters in gram panchayats and preference would be given to areas where natural farming is prevalent, in states like Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
The idea is to scientifically revive and strengthen agriculture practices towards sustainability and climate resilience, while ensuring healthy food for farmer families and consumers.
Under the mission, the government will set up need-based 10,000 bio-input resource centres to ensure easy availability of and accessibility to ready-to-use natural farming inputs for farmers.
Farmers will be provided with an easy and simple certification system and dedicated common branding to market their natural farming produce.
Real-time geotagged and referenced monitoring of NMNF implementation will be done through an online portal.
