RSS campaign to promote cow based non-chemical farming

Lucknow: The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has embarked on a countrywide campaign to encourage farmers to adopt cow-based agriculture practices.
The four-month long campaign, Bhoomi Suposhan Abhiyan, was launched on April 13 and has brought on board organizations like Patanjali Yog Peeth, Gayatri Parivar, Eklavya Foundation, Art of Living, Shri Ramchandra Mission and others to cover two lakh villages in the country.The campaign is the result of discussions held by RSS in 2018 on harmful effects of chemical fertilizers and poisonous pesticides, used in modern day agriculture practices, on soil.
“It is an awareness programme aimed at soil conservation, cow conservation, water conservation and reclamation and restoration of lost and threatened natural water resources like ponds. All these are interlinked,” said Awadh Prant Sanyojak (environment), RSS, Vishnu Dutt Bajpai.
One of the major objectives of the campaign is to encourage organic farming and find out which plants will grow better in which type of soil, carry out classification of plants based on its basis and encourage its plantation.
Organisations supporting the cause took up the campaign in Mohanlalganj, Lucknow, on Tuesday. In Sitapur, locals cleaned Kathina river, a tributary of Gomti, as part of the campaign. Similar initiative was taken up in villages of Unnao, Lakhimpur Kheri and other districts.
“We start the campaign with bhoomi pujan and gau pujan. We ask farmers to bring in soil from their fields and mix it with cow dung, cow urine and jeevamrut. We ask them to spread the same soil in their fields and see the change,” said Brajendra Pal Singh of Lok Bharti, a self-help group running the campaign along with RSS in Uttar Pradesh.
“We are explaining to farmers a simple science which will transform them into prakratik krishak,” said Singh. Office-bearers linked with campaign claimed one gram of cow dung has 3,000 crore to 5,000crore microorganisms which help plants and crop draw nutrition from soil. A cow yields about 10kg cow dung every day. The cow dung, when mixed with cow urine, jaggery, gram flour and soil from peepal roots, gives ‘jeevamrut’ which is a natural pesticide for plants, they added.