Last week, the Union cabinet approved the National Mission on Natural Farming with a budget of Rs 2,481 crore in a bid to push a new approach to production. It intends to focus on a staggering 10 million small farmers in 15,000 clusters enveloping 7.5 lakh hectare. But devoid of a larger architecture, will the scheme be a game changer? The jury is still out.
In a country with deteriorating soil quality and a deepening agrarian crisis, the scheme, the Narendra Modi government hopes, will bring rich dividends for farmers.
In the meantime, India also quietly continues with its research on genetically modified crops. Natural farming versus GM crops — rather agro-ecology versus agro-industry — is a vexed and unsettled debate. It now manifests itself in the Centre’s dual policy mindset.
A comprehensive CIRAD-FAO study published in November found a basis for a shift towards natural farming to heal sick soil and maintain productivity. The study found that this would also meet sustainable development goals and help farmers save on costs. It focussed on the seven-year-old ambitious project in Andhra Pradesh called the AP-CNF or the community-managed natural farming project. The AP-CNF claims it has transformed nearly a million hectares to natural farming systems. The yield increase in natural farming would be less but much better balanced in macronutrients and richer in micronutrients and fibre, with zero chemicals and no antibiotics, the CIRAD-FAO study says.
There is a renewed interest the world over in the ‘food systems landscape’ approach which does not merely advocate for a transition from industrial to organic farming but also recommends caring for the entire landscape within which agriculture is located. It’s a complicated and difficult transition for farmers given their small holdings, rising costs and falling incomes.
Poor planning
The experience so far with natural farming projects has not been encouraging. The Centre has tried it in the past, perhaps half-heartedly because of skepticism within the agriculture research institutions towards such a production system. The institutions are inclined towards higher production driven by chemicals, external inputs and GM seeds.
That is why the farmers who enrolled in the Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (or the earlier version of it, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana) discontinued with the practices once the funding ebbed due to various unmitigable challenges and problems pertaining to markets. The Green Revolution, one may remember here, was a result of a three-pronged strategy: inputs and production system transformation; remunerative pricing for crops through a minimum support price, and procurement guarantee,
supplemented by a universal public distribution system.
In a new approach, the government wants farmers to shift to natural farming but the other two guarantees: full procurement and remunerative price incentive are not forthcoming. Besides, the new push is not backed by a package of scientific knowledge even though the mission lays down guidelines about the natural farming systems. This scheme also does not think of a long-term incentive support for farmers to make the switch from chemical farming as it is bound to take time and may lead to a drop in production and therefore lead to initial losses.
Who will guide the farmers during the transition to the natural farming systems remains a million-dollar question. The states do not have an extension system to support that either. Apart from crop incomes, rural households desperately need multiple avenues to earn money. Questions about certification procedures and smooth market linkages remain unaddressed as well.