National Mission on Natural Farming

NMNF is a Government of India scheme, approved by the Cabinet on 25 November 2024, that helps farmers in willing Gram Panchayats switch to natural farming — growing crops using only inputs made on the farm from livestock, with no purchased chemical or organic inputs. It works through 50-hectare farmer clusters, backed by training, bio-input centres and an incentive of ₹4,000 per acre per year for 2 years.

An output-based incentive of ₹4,000 per acre per year, for up to 1 acre per farmer, paid over 2 years. It can be used for training, upkeep of the cattle natural farming depends on, containers for storing inputs, or buying ready-made bio-inputs from a Bio-Input Resource Centre.

No. Natural farming (NMNF) means using only on-farm, livestock-based inputs like jeevamrit and beejamrit — nothing purchased, not even organic fertiliser. Organic farming under PKVY (Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana) is broader: farmer groups can still buy compost, vermicompost or other organic inputs and get PGS-India organic certification. NMNF grew out of PKVY’s natural-farming component, Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP), which has now become this separate, larger mission.

In a Gram Panchayat that volunteers to join, a contiguous area of about 50 hectares farmed by roughly 125 willing farmers is grouped into one cluster. The Mission plans 15,000 such clusters covering 7.5 lakh hectares and reaching 1 crore farmers.

A local centre, planned roughly one per cluster (10,000 planned nationwide), that prepares and sells ready-made natural-farming inputs — jeevamrit, beejamrit, ghanjeevamrit and similar — so a farmer does not have to prepare every input by hand at home.

A trained local resource person — the Mission plans 30,000 of them, two per cluster — who mobilises farmers, runs training and demonstrations, and hand-holds them through the switch to natural farming.

There is no individual online application for the incentive. NMNF works Panchayat by Panchayat: your Gram Panchayat and its cluster must first join the Mission through the State Agriculture Department, after which the local Krishi Sakhi/CRP enrols willing farmers within the cluster area.

Not automatically. NMNF supports a simplified, farmer-friendly PGS-India certification track for natural-farming produce, managed by the National Centre for Organic & Natural Farming (NCONF), and a single national brand is planned for such produce. Certification still follows the PGS-India process and timeline.

₹2,481 crore over the Mission period — ₹1,584 crore from the Central Government and ₹897 crore from State Governments — running through the 15th Finance Commission cycle (2025-26).

Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP) was the natural-farming component run under PKVY from 2020-21 to 2022-23. NMNF, approved in November 2024, carves natural farming out into its own standalone, larger Centrally Sponsored Scheme with a bigger budget, its own cluster model, BRCs and the ₹4,000/acre/year farmer incentive — rather than being one component inside PKVY.

You can practise natural farming on more land, but the ₹4,000-per-acre-per-year financial incentive is paid only on up to 1 acre per farmer.

NMNF is a pan-India, State-implemented scheme — but it only reaches a Gram Panchayat once that Panchayat volunteers and a cluster is formed there, and once the State includes it in its roll-out. Check with your State Agriculture Department or local Krishi Sakhi on whether your area is covered yet.

No single national toll-free NMNF helpline is listed on the official portal as of this writing. For queries, contact your State Agriculture Department, your cluster’s Krishi Sakhi/CRP, or use the enquiry options on naturalfarming.dac.gov.in.

As officially reported for progress up to mid-2025, over 10 lakh farmers had enrolled, with more than 1,100 model farms developed and 806 training institutions — including Krishi Vigyan Kendras and agricultural universities — engaged. Enrolment continues as more States roll out clusters.

No fee is charged to farmers for enrolling in a cluster, for training from Krishi Sakhis/CRPs, or for the simplified PGS-India certification route under NMNF.