Shimla, Oct 29 (IANS): A total of 2,209 panchayats out of the total 3,226 have been brought under the ambit of natural farming in Himachal Pradesh.

This fact came to light at a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Shrikant Baldi here on Tuesday of the state-level Task Force for Promotion of Organic and Zero Budget Natural Farming under Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Kissan Yojana.

Horticulture has an important role to play in adoption of natural farming by farmers, Baldi said.

Natural farming is a technique of farming that requires no ploughing or tilting or use of chemical fertilizers.

A target of training 50,000 farmers has been fixed for this year. As many as 20,579 farmers have been trained out of which 15,391 have started practicing natural farming in their fields, he added.

A list of practices for different crops under natural farming will be prepared for the farmers. Big events will be organised to encourage natural farming.

At the meeting, approval was given for a master trainer to hold a maximum of five training sessions per month till March 2020.

Approval was also given for an additional amount of Rs 2,500 per month for block technology manager and assistant technology manager recruited under Agricultural Technology Management Agency on performance basis till March 2020.