Zero Budget Natural Farming- Evolution, Key elements, Concerns and Impact

By the year 2050, over 60% of India's population would suffer from acute food insecurity due to the present agricultural growth rate. There is an immediate need for increased production, but farmers are becoming indebted due to high expenses and unstable market prices. A grassroots movement known as zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) seeks to increase agricultural profitability through cost-cutting measures. Various states in the Nation have adopted ZBNF and turned a portion of their fertile agricultural land to ZBNF. However, due to the little external nutrient inputs, there is a chance of decline in food production, which led to the sustainability of ZBNF into doubt. Crops such as legumes are probably going to supply the majority of the nitrogen, even though, Only 52–80% of the average national nitrogen applied as fertilizer is predicted to be delivered, even with full potential nitrogen fixation and release. Therefore, yield penalties are expected in higher-input conventional agricultural systems. Since only nitrogen may be biologically fixed from the environment, ZBNF may restrict the availability of other nutrients. To make sure that India's ability to feed itself is not compromised by mass conversion to ZBNF, hence more study is required in higher-input conventional agricultural systems.