Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) in Vizianagaram District of Andhra Pradesh– A Critical Study

“Zero Budget” means the cost of cultivation can be minimized using completely on-farm resources and utterly avoiding the usage of off-farm resources like purchased seeds, chemical pesticides, fungicides, and other agrochemical inputs. “Natural Farming” means farming with nature avoiding all chemical inputs in agriculture. The study was conducted in the Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh to study the knowledge and adoption status of ZBNF as well as the Impact of ZBNF on farmers. An ex-post facto research design was adopted for the investigation. The results of the study revealed that the Majority of the ZBNF farmers (52.5%) had medium knowledge of ZBNF practices. Education, farm size, annual income, livestock possession, extension contact, training has undergone, Input acquisition source and risk orientation of ZBNF farmers showed positive and significant influence on knowledge whereas, family size and farming experience showed positive and significant influence on knowledge of ZBNF farmers. The majority of the ZBNF farmers showed medium adoption (62.5%) of ZBNF practices. Annual income, livestock possession, extension contact, training has undergone, input acquisition source and risk orientation of ZBNF farmers showed positive and significant influence on the adoption of ZBNF practices. Education and family size positively and non-significantly influenced the adoption whereas, farm size showed a negative and significant influence on the adoption of ZBNF practices by farmers. The majority of the ZBNF farmers had a medium impact (56.3%) and 27.3% of ZBNF farmers had a high impact (27.5%). Whereas, most of the Non-ZBNF farmers had a medium impact (46.7%) followed by low (36.6%). Education, farm size, annual income, livestock possession, extension contact, training has undergone, input acquisition source, and risk orientation of ZBNF farmers showed positive and significant associations with impact.