Around fifty thousand farmers of the state would be covered under Subhash Palekar Natural Farming programme during this financial year including 2500 farmers from Sirmaur district.
Governor Acharya Devvrat stated this while addressing the farmers during a camp organised by the Agriculture Department on Subhash Palekar Natural Farming at Bathaudhar in Rajgarh sub-division of Sirmaur district on Saturday evening.
Acharya Devvrat said farmers of the state are coming forward to adopt natural farming in a big way and till March 2019, 2669 farmers were engaged in this farming on 252 hectares of land.
The training is being imparted to 206 farmers on this model of farming who are doing natural farming on 552 bigha land. He said a six-day long training camp is being organised on creating awareness amongst the farmers regarding Subhash Palekar Natural Farming at the Horticulture University, Nauni from 28 June to 3 July wherein Subhash Palekar himself would provide information about natural farming.
“Indigenous cow has important role in natural farming and the state government is providing Rs 25,000 grant for purchasing indigenous cow. Besides, the target has been fixed to make Himachal Pradesh free of chemical farming by 2022,” he added.
He said that keeping in view the natural beauty of the Bathaudhar area, a meeting would be held with the tourism department to prepare a master plan for developing the area for tourism activities by creating basic infrastructure.