Shimla: In order to make farming healthful and pesticide-free, the state government is promoting natural farming in a big way. Thousands of farmers have adopted Subhash Palekar Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kisan scheme of the state government and particularly the women are playing a major role in making it a success. The farmers are being encouraged to grow vegetables and other crops through natural farming individually or by forming self help groups.
As many as 2664 Gram Panchayats out of total 3226 Panchayats of the State have been covered under Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kisan scheme. So far, 44325 farmers have been provided training on natural farming by organising 1031 training programme
s at different places. So far, 39124 farmers of the State have adopted natural farming against the target of 50 thousand farmers. Natural farming is being done in approximately 1650 hectares of land in the state. A target has been fixed to involve 9.61 lakh farmers with organic farming by the year 2022, for which all out efforts are being made by the government. A target has been fixed to involve two lakh farmers in organic farming for the year 2020.