To promote natural farming in the state, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced that farmers will be given a subsidy of up to Rs 25,000 on the purchase of indigenous cow and also to provide them four big drums to prepare the solution of Jeevamrut for natural farming free of cost.

Haryana will be the first state in the country to do so, said Khattar while speaking as the chief guest at the state level review meeting on natural farming organised at Dr Mangal Sain Auditorium Hall in Karnal.

The Chief Minister said that the basic objective of natural farming is to change the eating habits, for which we have to adopt the concept of food and medicine. “Natural farming is the only way out. A target has been set to promote natural farming on 50,000 acres of land in the State and in order to make people aware about it, an exhibition of natural farming will be done in every block,” he said.

On the occasion, the Chief Minister interacted directly with agriculture experts and gave tips to increase natural farming. Khattar said that the farmers, having two to five acres of land registered on the portal and who voluntarily adopt natural farming, will be provided 50 per cent subsidy for purchasing indigenous cows.

The Chief Minister, while addressing the Technical Assistant Managers, Block Technical Assistant Managers and the farmers present associated with the Agricultural Technology Management Agency (AATMA) of the Central Government, said that Atma Yojana of Agriculture Department will fix the poisonous food grains being produced in our fields due to indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers.

He said that Sikkim is the first state in the country which has moved completely to natural farming. A lot of work is also being done in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, now the Haryana Government will take a new initiative to give subsidies on the purchase of indigenous cows.

“We are glad that farmers now understand natural farming and so far 1,253 farmers of the state have registered themselves voluntarily for adopting natural farming on the portal created by the Agriculture Department,” he said.

Directly interacting with ATMs and BTMs, it came to the notice of the Chief Minister that monthly honorarium has not been received for the last six-seven months. The Chief Minister immediately directed the Additional Chief Secretary of the Finance Department over the phone that the honorarium should be released with immediate effect. He said that he does not want the salary of any employee to be delayed and that even the salary of the village watchman and sanitation worker is released by the seventh of every month.

In a direct interaction during the programme, the Chief Minister said that a portal will be made for the farmers to set up a demonstration plant of natural farming. Along with giving complete information about the land on this portal, farmers will give information about adopting crop diversification voluntarily. Apart from this, it will also give information about growing pulses in food grains.

He said that training should be given to farmers in small groups of 20-25 so that they can get information about crop production in a better way. Such a scheme will also be prepared so that the customers in the market do not have doubts about whether it is a product of natural farming or not.

Progressive farmers will now be called natural farmers

Chief Minister Khattar said that the progressive farmers will now be called “natural farmers”, because natural farming has to be done according to the laws of nature, from which we had turned away in the past.

“A demonstration plant must be made in every block so that the farmers of that block can easily take advantage of it,” he said, adding that more than 50 progressive farmers should be trained at the block level. In this way, more and more progressive farmers can be prepared across the State.