The budget 2019 was declared on July 5 where the Union Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharam said that zero-budget farming can help increase farmers’ income. The pesticides used for chemical farming degrades the quality of the agricultural land and moreover, the pesticides and synthetic urea are also expensive. Organic or natural farming, on the other hand, can prevent the land from losing its fertility and it does not even require the need for costly chemicals. And Enabavi village in Telangana tells us why organic farming is important.

The village has been practising natural farming for the last few years and it is known as Telangana’s first organic village. 75-year-old farmer, Ponnam Mallaiah’s yield increased initially when he started using more chemical fertilizers. But later the input burden kept escalating and both his income as well as yield stopped growing. And now for the past 19 years, Ponnam has been practising natural farming as reported by NDTV.

Ponnam told the portal that earlier each farmer had a loan of RS 15000 but, today no one has the burden of debts and every house has a bike, tractor, therefore, life is going really well.

The small farmers grow rice, wheat, chillies, millets, oilseeds, cotton, and vegetables in Jangaon district of Telangana which are not only being sold in the local markets and Hyderabad but, also in Singapore.

Mylaram Venkanna, a farmer in the village gave up on chemical farming after realizing how hazardous chemicals can affect one’s health and can even take life. On explaining how the natural way of farming works, he told NDTV that cow urine and dung are stored to make bio manure and vermicompost. The neem seeds from its tree are used as a biopesticide. They grow leguminous crops with the main crop for nitrogen fixation. And subsoil to enrich and multi crops for good soil health. Mylaram can also make pheromone to trap pests. They even grow plants which attract insects which can keep pests at bay.

Opting for natural farming can curb down several problems for the farmers and make their life easy. Enabavi village’s outstanding way of organic farming is certainly the way how it should be done.