BJP farmers' wing to carry yatras in 1 lakh sites to promote organic farming

To promote organic farming, the Bharatiya Janata Party is carrying out yatras across various locations around the country. After its recently-concluded national executive in Belgaum last week, the party’s agricultural wing, the Kisan Morcha will carry out 5-kilometre long yatras along riversides starting with a walk around the Ganga.

The wing plans to conduct walks around 1 lakh villages and reach out to 1 crore people this year to promote millets, organic farming and the restricted use of insecticides and chemical fertilisers in farming.

To this end, the Kisan Morcha is also carrying out a training for their party colleagues at the BJP headquarters on February 13. The wing’s officials will organise the seminar, and scientists, nutritionists, and other experts will train BJP workers on the use of millets, too.

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The morcha’s state convenors and co-convenors and research and policy wing officials will carry out the seminar. After the seminar in the headquarters, the wing will hold similar sessions across all districts where they hope to train farmers, too.

Rajkumar Chahar, the wing’s president, said that some of these walks have been carried out in locations in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. “We wanted to take the message of the prime minister, who has spoken about the importance of organic farming, and the ill-effects of using chemicals in farming which leads to diseases like cancer, kidney diseases, etc,” Chahar said.

Next month, in Uttar Pradesh’s Shukratal, CM Yogi Adityanath, party president JP Nadda, union agriculture minister NS Tomar, and Chahar will flag off a jan jagran campaign, where the wing will carry out a gaon parikrama yatra. Through the help of pamphlets, kisan choupals and discussions, they will ask farmers to adopt natural farming practices and reduce the use of chemicals.

Chahar said that the wing is also carrying out a week-long campaign to speak to farmers about what a farmer can benefit from the Budget. “There will now be cooperatives across all gram panchayats, there’s a huge allocation for millets, and ease of business for fisheries and husbandries. We will tell farmers across the country about that,” he said.