Natural farming is a unique method of agriculture that is completely different from conventional agriculture. Conventional agriculture follows the system of monoculture (one crop in a field) but natural farming follows polyculture (biodiversity-based agriculture). Conventional agriculture is input-based agriculture but natural farming is knowledge-based agriculture. Conventional agriculture is a loss-making business for the farmers so governments have to provide huge subsidies to make it viable whereas natural farming is a highly profitable business for the farmers and entrepreneurs. A natural farming agro ecosystem looks like a natural forest, and it functions like a natural ecosystem. Natural farming depends on the conservation of natural resources and restoration of ecosystem services to maximize crop production and crop protection. The idea of natural farming originally came from the traditional agricultural knowledge of the indigenous people. Modern farmers have refined that knowledge to design various nature-based agriculture forms Here we summarized the basic principles of natural farming in a precise manner to clear all doubts and for a clear understanding of the common people. The adoption of natural farming is not only important for the profit maximization of the farmers but also important for the conservation of soil health, plant health, animal health, human health, and environmental health for future generations. Natural farming can be practiced in a small-scale urban terrace garden for home consumption of healthy vegetables and fruits or can be adopted in large-scale corporate farming for earning high ROI and carbon credit.

To understand natural farming the definition of agriculture should be wider. Agriculture should be defined as domestication, breeding, and culture of plants, animals, and microorganisms, in open fields or closed environments, for the production of food, feed, medicine, fibre, and other materials of economic value for the benefit of man. Agricultural systems can vary widely, here we divided them into two basic types: monoculture (anti-biodiversity agriculture) and polyculture (biodiversity-based agriculture).

Growing a single crop in a field is known as monoculture. Monoculture is unnatural and completely anti-biodiversity agriculture because it continuously fights with nature using chemical poisons to keep biodiversity away from the crop plants. Monoculture applies herbicides to kill weeds (plant biodiversity), applies insecticides or pesticides to kill insect pests, predators, and parasites (animal biodiversity) and applies fungicides to kill both harmful (pathogen) and beneficial fungi (mycorrhiza and antagonists), and applies antibiotics to kill both harmful and beneficial bacteria (microorganism biodiversity). Monoculture applies deep tillage to destroy soil structure, soil water holding capacity, soil organic matter, soil microorganism biodiversity, and soil health. Monoculture disrupts natural biogeochemical cycles in soil such as the water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorus cycle, and potassium cycle to make the soil dead and to make the crop plant completely dependent on the supply of external inputs (seeds, fertilizers, micro-nutrients, growth regulators and pesticides) for crop production and crop protection. Monoculture is therefore unsustainable in nature, and it is a loss-making business for the farmer. Monoculture has many side effects such as deforestation, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, biodiversity loss, extinction of species, loss of underground water, eutrophication, soil erosion, soil degradation, desertification of land, genetic erosion, emission of greenhouse gases, climate change, an outbreak of insect pests, diseases, and weeds, environmental pollution, food waste, obesity, food-related diseases, hunger, malnutrition, poverty, farmers indebtedness, cancer of the farmer and farmers suicide. Monoculture can be subdivided into four different types based on the inputs used. (1) Conventional agriculture - conventional agriculture uses synthetic chemical inputs. (2) Organic farming - organic farming uses organic and biological inputs such as compost, vermicompost, bio-fertilizers, sludge, green manures, crop rotation, intercropping, inorganic fertilizers, growth regulators, botanical pesticides, bio-pesticides, light traps, pheromone traps, yellow sticky traps. (3) integrated nutrient management (INM), integrated pest management (IPM), and integrated disease management (IDM) - INM, IPM, and IDM use both chemical and organic inputs. (4) Integrated farming - integrated farming integrates monoculture crops with animal husbandry or fishery to increase productivity.

Natural farming or polyculture or nature-based agriculture or biodiversity-based agriculture is nothing but the modernization of the traditional system of agriculture. Modern polyculture systems are known by different names such as Agroecology, Agroecological Symbiosis, Agroforestry, Analog Forestry, Conservation Agriculture, Ecological Farming, Fertility Farming, Food Forest, Forest Farming, Forest Gardening, Korean Natural Farming (KNF), Natueco Farming, Natural Farming, No-till Farming, Permaculture, Probiotic Farming, Regenerative Agriculture, Rewilding Agriculture, Sorjan Farming System, Sustainable Intensification, Syntropic Agriculture, Taungya Cultivation, Vedic Agriculture (Rishi Kheti) and Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF). Out of these names, we used "natural farming" as the generic name for polyculture because it is easily understandable to all. Polyculture means growing more than two crops at a time in the same field (mixed cropping). A natural farming agroecosystem looks like a natural forest, and it functions like a forest ecosystem. Natural farming conserves natural resources (natural capital) and restores the natural ecosystem services to minimize the cost of production and maximize crop production, crop protection, and profit of the farmer. Natural farming is a source of a rich nutritional diet and a regular source of passive income for the farmer daily.

Natural farming completely relies on its natural resources for crop production and crop protection. Natural capital includes both abiotic components and biotic components of the agroecosystem. Abiotic components include soil, water, air, solar energy, temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall. Biotic components include the biodiversity of plants, animals,microorganisms, and man. As natural capital varies from place to place, the characteristics of the natural farms also vary widely.

Natural farming agroecosystems provide a host of direct and indirect ecosystem services to man. These include provisioning ecosystem services, regulating ecosystem services, and cultural ecosystem services.

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Though natural farming agroecosystems are highly complex systems, the methods of natural farming are very simple and effective. These methods were originally invented by the indigenous people, thousands of years ago, out of their own experience and deep understanding of nature and natural phenomena. Since the 1970s, many modern farmers all over the world have experimented with these traditional methods and developed new systems of agriculture, as an alternative solution to the unsustainable chemical input-based agriculture (monoculture). These varied systems of biodiversity-based agriculture (polyculture) have some common basic principles. These methods can be combined to form a complete package of practices for successful natural farming

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(1) Profit maximization of the farmer

(2) Conservation of natural resources

(3) Conservation of biodiversity

(4) Nutritional security of the consumers

(5) Restoring Natural Justice for the Farmers

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Natural farming agroecosystems provide a host of direct and indirect ecosystem services to man. These include provisioning ecosystem services, regulating ecosystem services, and cultural ecosystem services.

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Natural farming is a relatively new subject that needs scientific research and innovation for further improvement in its efficiency of ecosystem services.

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Globally, organic farming is regulated by IFOAM. Organic farming is a system of monoculture that follows conservation tillage, organic seed, crop rotation and avoids use of synthetic chemical inputs as far as possible. IFOAM has a positive and negative list of inputs that should be used or avoided in organic farming. IFOAM regulates a system of organic certification to differentiate organic products from chemical products. The cost of organic farming is higher than conventional agriculture but the quality of organic products are inferior to conventional agricultural products. Therefore, the price of organic products is higher and consumer acceptance of organic products is limited. On the other hand, natural farming is a spontaneous initiative of the farmers for minimising cost and maximising profit in farming. It is a system of polyculture that totally depends on available natural resources (soil, water, sunlight, temperature), natural ecosystem services (biogeochemical cycles) and native biodiversity of plants, animals and microorganisms, to maximise crop diversification, crop yield and profit. The risk and cost of natural farming is minimum but the yield, quality and market price of the products are maximum. Actually consumers regularly visit the natural farms to buy natural food products. Consumers judge the quality of the naturally grown product by its taste, and there is no need for any third party certification.

Plant, animal and microorganism biodiversity maintain the soil tilth in the natural farming agro-ecosystem. Plant roots penetrate the soil layers and incorporate organic matter in soil after dying and decaying. Earthworms, insects and other animals bore in the soil and bring bottom soil to the top. These tunnels help aeration and infiltration of rainwater in soil. Earthworms shred and decompose organic matter and mix it with soil. Earthworm casting (vermicompost) contains bacteria that mineralize organic matter and help increase organic carbon in soil. Bacterial mass forms biofilm over the soil particles and helps soil aggregation and increase water holding capacity of soil. In this way earthworms help tilling of soil most efficiently, without disturbing the soil structure, soil water, soil organic matter, soil biodiversity and soil health. Therefore, mechanical tillage is unnecessary and harmful for natural farming.

The variation in atmospheric temperature and soil temperature follows a diurnal cycle as well as a seasonal cycle. Mulching and cover cropping forms a layer of insulation over the soil surface and moderates these temperature variations in the natural farming agroecosystem, to help biodiversity of plants, animals and microorganisms to live and function comfortably.

Water cycle naturally occurs through the atmosphere (air) and geosphere (soil and water bodies). Natural farming tries to create a rainforest by planting a biodiversity of plant species that regulates this water cycle. The plant leaves release water vapour through transpiration and emit biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) and ice-nucleating bacteria (such as Pseudomonas putida) in the air during air turbulence. In this way plants induce cloud seeding and induce rainfall. Plants can absorb the shock of the falling rain drops and can harvest rainwater through leaves, stems and roots. The mulching layer over the soil surface absorbs rainwater, checks runoff and helps slow infiltration of water down the soil layers to reach the underground water aquifers. Mulching layers also check the water loss from soil through evapotranspiration. Overall, the natural farming agroecosystem maintains soil water level constantly at field capacity throughout the year for optimum plant growth and development. Therefore, there is no need for irrigation in the natural farming agroecosystem.

Natural farming agroecosystems improve soil health. Soil health improves plant health, plants defence against insect pests, plants immunity against diseases and plants competitive advantage over weeds. Natural farming agroecosystems also regulate natural control of insect pests, diseases and weeds through predation, parasitism and competition by their natural enemies.

Biological control is a human intervention in natural ecosystem services. Introduction, augmentation and conservation of specific alien invasive species of insects or microorganisms in the field, to control specific insect pests, diseases or weeds, is known as biological control. As the introduced alien invasive species never survived in the non-native environments, biological control remained unsuccessful in the field. Moreover, biological control is an expensive proposition. On the other hand, natural control is ubiquitous in nature, it needs no human intervention. Man creates the natural farming agroecosystem by mimicking the structure of the natural forest ecosystems, to restore natural control on biodiversity. Natural control is permanent and involves no cost.

Natural farming agroecosystems maximise leaf area index (LAI), solar energy harvesting, rainwater harvesting and carbon capture, to maximise its biomass synthesis. Natural farming regulates temperature cycle, water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorus cycle and potash cycle to maximise crop nutrition, crop yield. Natural farming passively regulates natural control to maximise crop protection against pests, diseases and weeds. Mixed harvesting of multiple crops ensures good market price of crops for farmers and ensures nutritional security of the consumer. Advanced methods of natural farming such as breeding of exclusive and exquisite plant varieties and animal breeds, multilayer polycropping, netting and bagging of fruits, direct marketing of farm products and eco-agritourism can maximise crop yield, crop quality and market price of crops. In this way natural farming not only ensures food security but also nutritional security of the world.

The philosophy of Biodynamic Agriculture and Spiritual Farming are beyond the scope of modern science. Natural control is permanent and involves no cost.