Current Farming Methods Are Exacerbating Climate Change

How is climate change exacerbating current farming methods and impacting farmers?  

Earth has exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries – the safe operating space for humanity. More frequent extreme weather events – prolonged droughts, excessive rainfall, and extreme temperatures – impact soil fertility, crop yields and nutrient density and worsen food systems. Current farming methods have led to land degradation, salinization, and excessive water extraction. Organic carbon content in Indian soils has decreased to 0.3 per cent from 1 per cent over the last 70 years, adversely affecting soil fertility, structure, water-retention capacity, and genetic diversity.  

What are the solutions to address this crisis?  

Current farming methods are exacerbating climate change, and we are in a vicious cycle. This can be reversed if we change from ‘destructive’ farming to ‘regenerative’ natural farming.  Natural farming through 365 days of green cover and diverse crops in each season, enables greater production of all crops thereby ensuring food and nutrition security. Natural farming practices heal the earth and improve soil health year-on-year. Soil fertility improves. Land degradation and desertification can be effectively reversed, particularly through efforts to achieve the National Land Degradation Neutrality target of restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land. Natural farming brings greater area under farming; increases the number of crops in a year; and enables three to five crops on the same plot of land. As a result, we see natural farming feeding a future population of 10 billion by 2050.   

Would you briefly introduce the Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming Program?  

Natural farming is farming in harmony with nature and mimicking nature. It is a holistic land management practice that leverages the power of photosynthesis in plants. Natural farming’s universal principles include 365 days of green cover; multi-layered diverse crops; minimal soil disturbance; bio-stimulants to activate soil biology; integrating animal husbandry; and, not applying synthetic chemicals. Natural farming is based on modern and emerging science, especially around soil microbiome and its interface with plants, with small quantities of biological inoculants/catalysts.  

A major global breakthrough in our work has been pre-monsoon dry sowing (PMDS) – covering the soil with diversified crops during the pre-monsoon season to maintain a 365-day cover, even in rainfed lands.   

As of date, 8,50,000 farmers are on the natural farming journey.  A grade model farms with a leading crop, 4-5 associated crops and 20-30 biodiversity crops on 1-acre lands; and, ATM (Any Time Money) models for continuous harvests of 15 to 20 crops in 0.20 areas of land are helping farmers take multiple crops throughout the year and achieve incomes three to five times the incomes of conventional farmers.   

 What kind of positive impact has natural farming had in Andhra Pradesh?  

The studies conducted in natural farming fields indicate significant increases in net incomes of farmers by 25 per cent, reduction of costs and stabilization of the yields of the major crops. The impacts also include reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, ranging from 29.7 per cent to 91.1 per cent depending on the crop. Additionally, water savings of up to 50 per cent have been observed. The farms also show a notable increase in earthworm population (sevenfold), a 55 per cent increase in avian count, and a 60 per cent rise in beneficial insects. Crop resilience has been the biggest benefit of natural farming. During the recent Michaung cyclone, natural farming paddy demonstrated better resilience and suffered minimum losses.   

What is the APCNF Model? What are the challenges in scaling up Natural Farming?  

We are currently working with 7,550 village self-help group federations and 202,000 women SHGs in 4116 villages across Andhra Pradesh. We are also supporting seeding natural farming in 12 states. 

Transit to knowledge-intensive natural farming is through farmer-to-farmer learning. Best-practitioner farmers as community resource persons (CRPs) champion natural farming in villages. It takes eight to ten years to take a village into natural farming – three to five years to bring over 80 per cent farm families into natural farming; three to five years for a family to transit fully. Women self-help groups and their federations take charge of mobilising, learning, collective action, traceability, accountability, and financing.