Indian Journal of Ecology

An independent evaluation of Subhash Palekar Natural Farming (SPNF) was undertaken in Himachal Pradesh, covering 325 farmers from all four agro-climatic zones. We compared the yield potential, input cost and net returns in major crop combinations under SPNF during the Rabi (2018–19) and Kharif (2019–20) seasons, with Conventional Farming (CF). The cereals-pulses, cereals-vegetables, fruit-pulses-vegetables and vegetables-pulses were found as the four major crop combinations followed under SPNF on an average area of 0.26 ha, in the State. The fruit based SPNF farming combination was the most popular (40.6%) and profitable (REE=21.44%). A reduction of 14.3445.55 per cent in cost of cultivation and an increase of 11.8–21.55 per cent in the net returns, over CF, validate the superiority of SPNF over the CF. The success of early SPNF adopters supports the viable potential of SPNF to sustain farming and enhance mountainous farmers' income, yet long term studies are required.