Is Natural Farming Ecologically Sustainable and Socio-economically Viable?

Recently, interest in Natural Farming (NF) has surged, spearheaded by the Government of India (GOI).  The principles of natural farming are rooted in the concepts defined by Surapala’s Vrikshayurveda (1000 CE), the ancient Indian “science of plant life.” In fact, early agriculture anywhere on the globe could be called as natural farming.

Dr Neelam Patel, senior adviser, India’s NITI Aayog, has said that over 0.65 million hectares of agricultural land in 11 states in India is already under this form of natural farming (Indian Express, 27 January 2022). But the figure could be much higher, as most of the low-input agriculture by resource-poor smallholder farmers can be called “natural farming by default”. The GOI’s budget proposals also recommend the adoption of chemical-free NF along the 5 km-wide corridors of the Ganga river basin. Farmers who adopted NF in some states in India (such as Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Sikkim) have claimed higher yields and low cultivation costs; but the validation of those claims is still awaited, in terms of increases in larger-scale production, productivity, and economics, as well as in meeting the needs of environmental sustainability.

Assuming that NF does provide all the benefits claimed for it, scaling it up at national level could risk national food security; proverbially speaking, it could amount to putting all our eggs in one basket. It will also affect the farmers’ decision-making capacity, leading to increased vulnerability and dependence on the State through subsidies and other support systems. It is well known that there are several different kinds of farming in India (and many more globally), each having a role to play in specific situations. That variety or diversity could better contribute to India’s mission on Sustainable Agriculture, while also ensuring the food, economic, and livelihood security of Indian farmers.

Farming practices, even among a small set of farmers, are highly varied and diverse. Each farmer practices her/his own set of crop husbandry practices, which could be potentially different from their neighbour’s, depending on what the farmer considers suitable for his/her socio-economic situations, as well as the type of soil and agro-climatic conditions prevailing in the area. There are costs involved in tilling the land, cost of seed and manure, and the cost of manual labour involved in farm operations. There is no such thing as 100% natural farming, zero budget farming, or 100% organic farming, etc. Many of the elements of Natural Farming, such as Beejamrit (microbial seed coating), Jeewamrit (soil-microbial enhancer), Waaphasa (soil aeration), and Acchadana (mulching), etc., are external inputs, with an associated cost, and they are some sort of ‘chemicals’ in a broad sense.

To go by recent experience, Sri Lanka has taken a complete U-turn on organic farming, after its food production (including production of tea and other export-oriented crops) dropped drastically, and it could not afford to import food on a large scale. Sikkim in India was declared fully organic in January 2016. However, with reports of yield reduction in most crops, the state had to import food grain from neighbouring states. The new Chief Minister of Sikkim has now indicated that his government will encourage organic farming, but it will not impose it on farmers.

An expert committee set up by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in 2019, under the Chairmanship of Dr V. Praveen Rao, (VC, PJ Telangana State Agriculture University, Hyderabad), has indicated that large-scale adoption of NF could result in ‘tremendous reduction’ in crop productivity, and thus a big slump in total production of food crops. The expert committee’s report was based on a review of more than 1,400 research articles related to various agriculture practices, alongside interviews with farmers who claimed to have adopted NF across 7 states of India. In place of NF, the ICAR committee has recommended adoption of an integrated production system, via the use of farm practices such as conservation agriculture through minimum tillage, use of farmyard manure, intercropping, crop diversification, integrated pest and disease management, and integrated nutrient management for improving soil health.

Essentially, sustainable agriculture (SA), whether it is called organic agriculture, natural farming, or by some other name, depends on conserving and enhancing “soil health.” In sustainable agriculture, farmers have to ensure that the soil and environmental health in their land is maintained or improved over time. Soil health consists of soil structure, its nutritional status, and the organic carbon content. Maintaining and increasing organic carbon content is a big challenge, especially in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

A study reported from the University of Western Australia indicates that it is difficult to maintain organic matter in soils with less than 600 mm rainfall, and with daily average temperatures of >15^oC. Farmers need to include green manure, crop residues, and follow crop rotation with legume crops that add nutrients (such as nitrogen and carbon) through leaf fall (for e.g., pigeonpea adds about 4 tonnes as leaf fall per season per ha).  In addition, the nutrients taken up by the crops need to be returned to the soil after each harvest. For example, one tonne/ha of maize grain removes ~161kg N (nitrogen), ~66 kg P205 (phosphorus), ~48 kg of K20 (potassium), and various quantities of other elements. Those nutrients need to be replenished after every harvest, to maintain and/or enhance a positive balance of nutrients in the soil. It depends on the farmer as to whether he/she uses organic or inorganic fertilizers to replenish the soil after each harvest. In addition to maintaining soil health, other physical (such as droughts and floods) and biological stresses (weeds, insect pests, and diseases) also need to be managed.

Sustainable agriculture should also maintain and improve the environment. When agricultural operations are sustainably managed, they can preserve and restore critical habitats, help protect biodiversity and watersheds (including groundwater and aquifers), and thus improve water and air quality.  We should take a holistic view of the “soil as a bank of nutrients,” whereby farmers need to replenish the nutrients taken up by a crop every season, even while they manage biological and physical stresses.  Farmers need to amalgamate the best practices from traditional knowledge and modern science, harnessing their synergies to maintain and improve soil health for sustainable agriculture, regardless of the type of agriculture methods followed in the area or region.

India is already committed to SA, although it did not sign the Action Agenda on Sustainable Agriculture at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. As is well known, many known farming methods (systems and practices) (see https://www.ceew.in/publications/sustainable-agriculture-india) contribute to sustainability in different contexts. Choosing one system of farming over another in a given situation depends on the availability of various inputs, and it can change from location to location, or within a location. It is vitally important that we need to produce more food with minimum damage to the ecosystem over a significantly longer period.  Eventually, this implies that minimum inputs are used for producing economically acceptable yields (this is the tricky part, how to define this acceptable yield).

Much of “modern” agriculture (now also referred to as a conventional agriculture system) aims at maximizing the economic yield. That approach obviously has to change if we pursue SA, and we need to accept less than maximum yield targets, which leads to the next question: are we prepared to make that sacrifice? Here ‘we’ does not mean sacrifice by the farmer, with millions of farmers owning very small and not economically remunerative land holdings (< 0.2 ha). Some 82% of Indian farmers are smallholder farmers, with agriculture as their primary source of livelihood.

The farm produce is consumed by both the smallholder farmers themselves and other citizens. Sustainable production and consumption is thus about doing more and better with less. It is also about decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, increasing resource-use efficiency and promoting sustainable lifestyles. Farmers need to be included in determining the price for their produce, and the consumers should reduce the wastage of food/agricultural produce. India wasted over 68 million tonnes of food in 2019 (UN Report: https://www.unep.org/resources/report/unep-food-waste-index-report-2021), which does not include pre- and post-harvest losses.

Farmers should be allowed to practice the type of agriculture that is best suited for the particular site or sites, based on the availability of soil, water, nutrients, and the farmer’s socio-economic conditions, including access to markets, with the overarching objective of minimum or no loss to the system. This would translate into practices that minimize the use of external inputs and water, reduce damage to soils and to the plants and trees that surround farms, thus conserving biodiversity. Let the farmers and experts/researchers (who are trained/experienced in participatory research methods) lead the mission. A top-down approach should be avoided at all costs.

In conclusion, following NF on a large-scale will likely risk our national food security and the sustainability, or long-term productive capacity, of natural resources. The vision of agriculture as an engine of economic growth (and rural development) will also be compromised. The government’s role should be limited to policy support and risk aversion support, backed by research institutions who would provide a basket of options for crop management practices in different agro-ecologies. That alone would allow farmers to choose appropriate practices that are best suited to the soil, climatic, and socio-economic conditions prevailing in the specific area or region.