Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced a subsidy of up to Rs 25,000 on the purchase of indigenous breeds of cows.

The Chief Minister said that farmers having two to five acres of land that is registered on the designated state government portal and who voluntarily adopt natural farming, will be provided a subsidy for purchasing indigenous cow breeds.

Khattar said that a target has been set to promote natural farming on 50,000 acres of land in the state, and in order to make people aware about it, an exhibition of natural farming will be organised in every block.

The Chief Minister was speaking as chief guest at the state-level review meeting on natural farming organized in Karnal, where he interacted with agriculture experts, according to an official statement.?He said that Sikkim is the first state in the country which has moved completely to natural farming.?

A lot of work is also being done in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, now the Haryana government will take a new initiative to give subsidy on the purchase of indigenous cows, he said.

The CM said he is glad that farmers are now understanding natural farming and so far 1,253 farmers of the state have registered themselves voluntarily for adopting this method on the portal created by the agriculture department.?

Khattar, according to the statement, said that a call for green revolution was given when there was a shortage of food grains in the country in the 1960s, "due to which there had been an indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers..."

On the occasion, Agriculture Minister J P Dalal said that the chief minister always thinks about the interest of farmers and how they should be prosperous.

Dalal said that the government has implemented schemes like 'Mera Pani-Meri Virasat' to save water and 'Bhavantar Bharpayee Yojana' for farmers to ensure they get full price for their produce.?

Apart from this, a provision has been made to give an incentive amount of Rs 6,000 per acre to reduce the sowing of water-guzzling paddy crop, he said.

-With PTI Input