Benefits Beyond Higher Net Returns as Factors Facilitating the Scaling-up of the Community Managed Natural Farming in AP *

Abstract

The article focuses on the little explored benefits that follow from the ‘Community Managed Natural Farming’ (NF) propagated by the government of Andhra Pradesh (AP). It shows that the benefits of NF include the productive use of land, the surplus labour absorption, and the containment of the debt burden. It further shows that NF is helpful in arresting the degradation of soil, in safeguarding the standing crop from the vagaries of nature, in securing a healthy family, in begetting respect among peers, in reducing stress in farming, and all this while guaranteeing a higher net return per hectare compared to chemical farming (CF). The benefit of the higher net returns from NF does not, however, accrue uniformly to all agro-climatic zones of the states. And, NF is generally rewarding to the little-endowed marginal farmers.