Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) is a cow-based, chemical-free method popularised by Subhash Palekar. It replaces bought fertiliser and pesticide with home-made preparations: Jeevamrit and Ghanjeevamrit for soil, Beejamrit for seed, mulch and moisture management for the field, and sprays like Neemastra for pests. It lowers purchased input costs, but it is not literally "zero budget", and yields can fall if soil nitrogen is not replaced.
In government programmes the name has changed: the national scheme is now the National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF), which replaced the earlier Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati, and Andhra Pradesh runs its programme as APCNF. This page explains the method with the actual recipes published by ICAR, then the honest trade-offs. For the yield and cost evidence, see natural farming vs organic farming.
The five parts of the method
- Beejamrit: seed and seedling treatment.
- Jeevamrit / Ghanjeevamrit: a fermented liquid (or solid) culture applied to soil to feed microbes and earthworms.
- Acchadana (mulching): covering the soil with crop residue or a live crop to hold moisture, cool the soil and suppress weeds.
- Whapasa: keeping soil pores holding about half air and half water vapour so roots get both. ICAR describes it as a way to cut the irrigation needed; farmers usually apply it as light irrigation near the root zone.
- Plant protection: Neemastra, Agniastra, Brahmastra and similar cow-urine-and-botanical sprays.
The recipes below are from ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region (Indian Farming, August 2025). Local cow dung and urine, preferably from a desi (indigenous) cow, are the base of all of them. Always make a small test batch first.
Recipes and doses
| Input | Ingredients (one batch) | How it is made and used |
|---|---|---|
| Beejamrit | 5 kg fresh cow dung, 5 L cow urine, 50 g lime, a handful of field soil, 20 L water (treats about 100 kg seed) | Soak the dung in a cloth bag in the water for about 12 hours, add lime water and urine, stir. Soak seed about one hour, dry in shade, then sow. For transplanted crops, dip roots 1-2 hours |
| Jeevamrit | 200 L water, 10 kg fresh cow dung, 5-10 L urine, 2 kg jaggery, 2 kg pulse flour, a handful of bund soil | Mix in a drum, keep in shade and ferment for 48 hours. Keeps up to 15 days. Apply 200 L per acre (about 500 L per hectare) with irrigation water or as a spray, fortnightly. For fruit trees, apply around each tree |
| Ghanjeevamrit | 100 kg cow dung, 2 kg jaggery, 2 kg pulse flour, a handful of bund soil, a little urine | Mix, dry in the shade and store as a solid soil amendment |
| Neemastra | 200 L water, 10 L cow urine, 2 kg cow dung, 10 kg crushed neem leaf (or neem seed pulp) | Cover, keep in shade, stir clockwise twice daily for 48 hours, strain through muslin. Spray at about 3% (3 L per 100 L water) against jassids, aphids, whitefly, mealybug and small caterpillars |
| Agniastra | 200 L cow urine, 2 kg neem leaf paste, 500 g tobacco powder, 500 g green chilli paste, 250 g garlic paste, 200 g turmeric powder | Boiled until foam appears, cooled and fermented 48 hours, strained. For leaf roller, stem borer, fruit borer and pod borer. Keeps about 3 months. Dilute roughly 3 L per 100 L water |
| Brahmastra | 20 L cow urine, 2 kg each of neem, karanj, custard apple, castor and datura leaf paste | Heat gently until it foams, cool 48 hours, strain. Keeps about 6 months. Spray at about 3% against sucking pests, pod and fruit borers and caterpillars |
The ICAR paper's dilution figures for the pest sprays are not perfectly consistent with each other, so treat 3% as a starting point and confirm with your KVK. Spray volume in the paper is 200 L per acre.
How to start on one acre
- Test your soil (see Soil Health Card) so you know your starting nitrogen, phosphorus and organic carbon.
- Pick a crop you can afford to have a weaker season on, not your main cash crop. Keep a neighbouring strip under your normal practice for comparison.
- Secure a cow. A 200 L Jeevamrit batch needs 10 kg of dung and up to 10 L of urine every fortnight per acre. If you have no cattle, find out whether a Bio-Input Resource Centre exists in your cluster.
- Treat seed with Beejamrit, then sow into mulch or residue instead of leaving soil bare.
- Apply Jeevamrit every 15 days and add mulch as the crop grows.
- Scout for pests weekly and spray Neemastra early; do not wait for a heavy attack.
- Record everything: labour days, inputs made, yield, sale price. That record is what tells you whether it pays.
Where it works and where it struggles
- Cost: in the CESS evaluation of Andhra Pradesh paddy, paid-out cost was ₹14,572 per acre for ZBNF farmers against ₹16,890 for others, with no significant yield difference (about 18 quintals per acre).
- Yield risk on high-input land: in an ICAR-IIFSR basmati rice-wheat trial, natural farming gave about half the yield of integrated crop management. A 2020 Nature Sustainability analysis warned that without extra manure, strict ZBNF may not supply enough nitrogen for high-yielding crops.
- Mixed by crop: in ICAR's Meghalaya work, mustard and peas responded well, while maize, black gram and tomato did worse than the control. Turmeric gave 11.6 t/ha under natural farming against 22.0 t/ha under an organic package.
- Labour and cattle: making and applying the inputs takes time, and cattle upkeep is a cost even when the dung is free.
So "zero budget" is better read as "lower cash cost". Plan for a possible yield dip in the first 1-3 seasons.
Government support
Under NMNF, a farmer adopting natural farming is eligible for ₹4,000 per acre per year for two years, for up to 1 acre. The mission also funds training at KVKs and model farms, trained Krishi Sakhis, and 10,000 planned Bio-Input Resource Centres. Enrolment is through the state agriculture department's natural farming clusters. The mission was approved through 2025-26, so ask your district office about the current season. Find other schemes you qualify for in the subsidy finder, and see how to start organic farming if you want a certified route.
Sources
- ICAR Research Complex for NEH Region, Production techniques in natural farming, Indian Farming, August 2025
- PIB backgrounder: National Mission on Natural Farming (13 Aug 2025)
- CESS: Impact Assessment of Zero Budget Natural Farming in Andhra Pradesh, Kharif 2018-19
- Ghasal et al. (2024), Journal of Plant Nutrition, basmati rice-wheat system
- Smith et al. (2020), Nature Sustainability, yield challenges of ZBNF