ABSTRACT

Impact of natural farming in Belagavi district of Karnataka- an economic analysis was carried out during 2023-24. Primary data were collected from 120 respondents comprising of 60 natural and 60 conventional farming farmers spread across two taluks of Belagavi district. For analysis of data, tabular analysis, budgeting technique and Garretts’ ranking technique were employed. The results from comparative analysis revealed that, natural farming offered economic advantages over conventional farming by utilizing on-farm, natural and locally sourced resources to create essential biological inputs. Natural farming minimized the cost of cultivation by 11.80 per cent (Rs. 2,55,587 /ha in conventional farming to Rs. 2,24,544 /ha in natural farming). Moreover, the study found that natural farming generated higher net returns (13.75 %) over conventional farming with net returns of Rs. 2,07,633 /ha and Rs. 1,81,532 /ha in respectively indicating superior profitability in natural farming. Resource use efficiency analysis showed that, setts positively influenced yields in both systems with conventional farming showing slightly higher effectiveness. Farm Yard Manure (FYM) had a greater impact on yields in natural farming while chemical fertilizers were more effective in conventional farming. Machine labour improved yields in both systems but biopesticides had minimal effect. Conventional farming had slightly better predictability with an R² value of 0.7728 compared to 0.7635 for natural farming. Based on MVP to MFC ratios setts, biopesticides and hired labour was over-utilized in the study area and other resources like machine labour, FYM and bio-fertilizers were under-utilized. In the study area, natural sugarcane farmers encountered several significant constraints, ranked by Garrett’s mean scores: non-availability of specialized markets (66.43) followed by high labour intensity (64.93), non-remunerative prices (60.58), low initial yields (51.29), insufficient information (40.28), challenges in pest control (38.63) and limited power supply (27.83).