Farming practices and inputs a question tests: natural farming, nano urea, SRI and the rest

Prelims and MainsCurrent affairs on this: Sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is examined as a list of named practices and inputs, each with a mechanism, which a statement in a question gets right or wrong. Natural farming grows a crop without purchased inputs, using preparations from cow dung and urine, mulch and soil moisture, and has had a national mission since 2024; organic farming excludes synthetic inputs but buys certified ones. Neem coated urea slows the release of nitrogen, and nano urea puts it in particles small enough to spray on leaves. The System of Rice Intensification transplants single young seedlings wide apart into moist rather than flooded soil, and direct seeding does away with the nursery and the puddled field. Millets, agroforestry, micro irrigation and the Soil Health Card complete the list. Behind them all is one number, urea's nutrient use efficiency of 30 to 40 per cent: most subsidised nitrogen ends in the air and water.

The practices and inputs, and what each does

Item	What it is	The mechanism a question tests	Scheme or date
Natural farming	no purchased inputs; Jeevamrit, Beejamrit, mulch, moisture	microbial cultures and mulch replace fertiliser and irrigation	National Mission on Natural Farming, 2024
Neem coated urea	urea coated with neem oil	slows nitrification, so nitrogen releases slowly; deters diversion	compulsory since 2015
Nano urea	nitrogen particles in a 500 ml bottle	sprayed on leaves, absorbed through stomata; claims to replace a 45 kg bag	IFFCO, 2021; nano DAP 2023
Soil Health Card	a soil test report every few years	twelve parameters set the fertiliser dose	2015
System of Rice Intensification	single young seedlings, wide spacing, moist soil	more tillers and roots per plant; less water and seed	Madagascar, 1980s
Direct seeded rice	sowing without nursery or puddling	saves about a third of water and the transplanting labour	Punjab incentive
Millets	small grained cereals: jowar, bajra, ragi and minor millets	drought hardy, short duration, rainfed	International Year, 2023

Each item is asked as a mechanism; the scheme or date is the second statement a question pairs with it.Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; IFFCO; ICAR

Natural farming: the four preparations of the Subhash Palekar method, Jeevamrit and Beejamrit from cow dung, urine, jaggery and pulse flour as microbial cultures, Achhadana or mulching, and Whapasa, keeping soil moist rather than wet; the National Mission on Natural Farming of November 2024 aims at one crore farmers over 7.5 lakh hectares through 15,000 clusters and bio input resource centres. Organic farming runs under the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana of 2015 and, in the north east, its own mission; Sikkim declared itself fully organic in 2016.
Fertiliser: neem coated urea, compulsory for all urea since 2015, slows nitrification and deters diversion to industry; nano urea, launched by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) in 2021, is a 500 millilitre bottle of nitrogen particles meant to replace a 45 kilogram bag, sprayed on leaves, and nano DAP followed in 2023; PM PRANAM of 2023 rewards a State that cuts chemical fertiliser use with half the subsidy it saves; the fertiliser registration subject explains the Fertiliser (Control) Order and the nutrient based subsidy. The Soil Health Card of 2015 tests twelve parameters, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, five micronutrients, pH, salinity and organic carbon.
Rice: the System of Rice Intensification, from Madagascar in the 1980s, transplants single seedlings of eight to twelve days at wide spacing into soil alternately wetted and dried, with a mechanical weeder and organic matter, saving water and seed and raising yield; direct seeded rice sows the field without a nursery or puddling, saving about a third of the water and the labour of transplanting, which Punjab pays farmers to adopt. Crop residue management, the happy seeder and the Pusa decomposer, answers stubble burning after the paddy.
Diversification and water: millets, small grained, drought hardy and short duration, had their International Year in 2023 on India's proposal; the National Agroforestry Policy of 2014 was the world's first; micro irrigation, drip and sprinkler, runs as Per Drop More Crop under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana; the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture programme of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research breeds and tests the resilient varieties.
Heritage and livestock: three Indian systems are Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Koraput's traditional farming, Kuttanad's below sea level cultivation and Pampore's saffron; livestock is the largest source of India's methane and, as the milk yield subject shows, the part of farming that heat stress reaches first.

Mains: The subsidy runs against the practice: urea is cheap and price controlled while every alternative asks the farmer to spend labour or take a yield risk, so natural farming and nano urea will spread where procurement and subsidy reward them and not where a mission merely counts clusters.

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2022: what the System of Rice Intensification, with alternate wetting and drying, reduces
Prelims 2017: what the Soil Health Card scheme aims at
Prelims 2016: why the government promotes neem coated urea