The state of Andhra Pradesh in India may be famous for its stunning emerald-green slopes covered in lush vegetation. Over the past few decades, however, the region has lost 30 to 40 per cent of its original forest cover, according to Dinesh Kumar, a local government official.
Intensive agricultural expansion has been one of the major drivers of deforestation and habitat loss in Andhra Pradesh, says Kavita Sharma, a Task Manager with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Global Environment Facility (GEF) Biodiversity and Land Degradation Unit. This has led to poor soils, loss of agroecological biodiversity, and lower groundwater tables. As the quality of soil deteriorated, many small farming communities have been struggling to cultivate their crops.
To counter these worrying trends, in 2004 the state government launched a programme on Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture, which evolved into the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming initiative (APCNF) in 2014. Building upon this initiative, UNEP and GEF with support from the Indian Government, are implementing a project that combines traditional knowledge with science to restore ecosystems, diversify crops, and improve soil health.
"We started creating a better deal for the farmers. Then we moved forward, thinking it was a better deal for consumers, and the improvements to the soil and water kicked in," says Vijay Kumar, the Executive Vice Chairman of Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS), the not-for-profit company behind AFCNF.
For years, small-scale farmers in the region have seen their crops dwindle because of deteriorating soil health. Many communities rely on chemical fertilizers to maintain their crop yields. But those fertilizers further damage the soil, requiring even greater inputs to produce any crops, trapping farmers in a vicious cycle.
"The costs have been increasing every year. And the risk of crop failure is also increasing," Kumar explains. "Consumers feel the consequences too, because the food they're eating has a lot of chemical residues, and nutritional integrity of the food has declined."
The situation has been made worse by erratic rainfall and rapidly declining biodiversity; pollinators like bees, butterflies, birds and bats are crucial for agriculture, enabling reproduction for about 75 per cent of flowering crops.
One of the main culprits behind this worsening crisis is monocropping, which involves growing a single crop over a large area repeatedly. Expanding monoculture farming often requires destroying diverse landscapes and replacing them with uniform fields.
"This conventional approach to agriculture is an enemy of biodiversity," Kumar says. "By pursuing monocropping, you're also encouraging soil erosion, water runoff and leaching of nutrients."
Madhuri Nanda, Director for South Asia at Rainforest Alliance, one of the projects implementing partners, points out that the problem is not just what happens in the field, but how this approach affects the wider environment. "In conventional agriculture, you are using more synthetic chemicals, and the whole environment around it is being degraded," she says. "Whether it is forest, whether it is extensive use of water or it is chemicals, which is creating an imbalance in the biodiversity."
Natural farming promoted by APCNF forgoes the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides altogether. Instead, farmers prepare natural bio-stimulants from ingredients such as cow urine and dung, which revive the living organisms present in the soil. These microbes bolster soil fertilityby breaking down organic matter and minerals, releasing nutrients.
"Small quantities of bio-stimulants will trigger the soil microbes," Kumar explains. "After some years, we will not even need them when the soil becomes fertile." The philosophy behind this approach is that diverse plants will feed the soil, and the soil will remain healthy, feeding the plants in turn without any need for external fertilizers. In the conventional system it is crop versus biodiversity," Kumar reflects. "Here it is crop and biodiversity - so the crop itself is part of biodiversity."
Farmers observing, experimenting, and learning from each other in the field is a cornerstone of the project. And Kumar believes that close engagement with women's self-help groups is one of the initiative's unique features. Women in the region play a crucial role in driving behaviour change within the family and often convince other family members to try new practices.
For Burudi Kumari, a local farmer who has practiced natural farming for five years, the change has been tangible. "The quality of soil has improved, and I spend less money on fertilizer, so my earnings have risen," she says.
Kumari is now a lead farmer in her self-help group, helping others make the transition. "I was very proud to be elected as a lead farmer," she says. This means I now introduce other people to natural farming.
But growing food sustainably only works if farmers can earn a living, so the initiative has also been engaging with the private sector, connecting farmers to markets, and increasing consumer confidence through certification and traceability.
Consumers can verify that the coffee or tea they are drinking is coming from a farm that practices sustainable agriculture and that it doesn't use child labour or forced labour, and respects minimum wages, Nanda explains.
The results are promising, with the project reporting at least a 30 per cent increase in productivity and the income for farmers who adapted the natural farming approach. The initiative has already reached more than 3 million farmers in Andhra Pradesh and plans to double that number, while sharing its experience with countries around the world.
The project has shown that feeding communities does not have to come at nature's expense, say those involved. "Natural farming has biodiversity at its heart. It's not a byproduct - it is the main product," Kumar says.
About the Global Environment Facility
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is the worlds largest multilateral fund for the environment. Its family of funds work together to address the planet's most pressing challenges in an integrated way. Its financing helps developing countries address complex challenges and work towards meeting international environmental goals. Over the past three decades, the GEF has provided more than US$27 billion in financing, primarily as grants, and mobilized another US$155 billion for country-driven priority projects.
