Context

• The Union Budget 2023-23 has launched Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-Input Resource Centres.

About Bhartiya Prakritik Kheti Bio-Input Resource Centres

• To further facilitate the adoption of “natural farming,” 10,000 Bio-Input Resource Centres will be set-up, creating a national-level distributed micro-fertiliser and pesticide manufacturing network.
• This will impact over 1 crore farmers over the next three years.

Why do these matter?

• Chemical fertilisers revolutionised agriculture when they were introduced, more than half a century ago.
• However, they also pose multiple risks that are increasingly being understood by scientists.
• They are known to be a major source of water pollution – impacting both groundwater and rivers, ponds and lakes.
• Eutrophication caused by excessive use of chemical fertilisers is a death knell for fishes and other aquatic life, often covering lakes and ponds with a thick layer of algae and reducing the oxygen content in the water.
• Over a long period of time, they can also harm the soil, causing acidification, and hence have an impact on the land’s productivity.
• Lastly, studies have found a link between the excessive use of chemical fertilisers and incidence of cancer among farmers.
• The challenge for today’s scientists and policy makers is to slowly wean the agricultural economy of chemical fertilisers while maintaining the high yields that they provide.

Source: IE

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