To ensure greater promotion and increase profitability under organic farming, we will take the following steps: We will promote chemical-free organic farming in an additional 20 lakh hectare of hilly, tribal and rainfed areas in the next 5 years. We will launch a dedicated e-commerce portal to enhance the availability of organic produce to the doorsteps of consumers.

This entry was imported as a promise on "zero budget natural farming". That phrase appears in the 2019 budget speech, not the manifesto. What the manifesto promised, under organic farming, is a number and a deadline: "We will promote chemical-free organic farming in an additional 20 lakh hectare of hilly, tribal and rainfed areas in the next 5 years", along with "a dedicated e-commerce portal to enhance the availability of organic produce to the doorsteps of consumers", goshalas linked to organic farming, and organic eco-tourism.

The national programme that now carries this agenda came after the term. "The Union Cabinet approved the National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) on 25th November 2024 to promote Natural Farming" — six months after the term the promise belonged to had ended.

Its progress so far, as the Ministry of Agriculture reported to the Lok Sabha on 11 August 2026: "Till date, 24,102 clusters have been formed covering 12.60 lakh Ha area, 26.76 lakh farmers enrolled, 8,100 Bio-Input Resource Centres (BRCs) established and 40,182 Krishi Sakhi/Community Resource Persons (CRPs) deployed under the Mission."

Twelve point six lakh hectares against a promise of an additional twenty lakh — and this is coverage under a mission that began after the five years were up. Chemical-free farming under the older Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and the north-east organic value chain mission continued through the term, but this answer does not report their area and we will not import figures we have not sourced.

Two things about the evidence base are worth stating.

The ministry cannot say who is farming this way or where: "District wise data as well as gender data is not maintained centrally." For a mission organised in clusters with community resource persons, that is a real gap in monitoring.

And the case for the practice rests on a study described without numbers. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has run a network programme since 2020-21 across 20 centres in 16 states evaluating eight cropping systems, and the answer summarises it: "Study shows that if natural farming is adopted with the correct techniques and in a balanced manner, yields improve", with reduced chemical costs raising net profits. The conditional — "if… with the correct techniques and in a balanced manner" — is doing work, and no yield or income figures are published in the answer.

On the e-commerce portal for organic produce, the answer says nothing.

Our verdict is lacks context.