In 2016, after a new decade of worsening agrarian crisis in India (Vaidyanathan, 2006), the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (AP: 53 million inhabitants and 9.3 million famers in 2020) initiated the scaling of what came to be known first as Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) and later renamed
as the climate-resilient Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF: https://apcnf.in). This approach draws on the principles of regenerative agriculture (Harwood, 1983; Fukuoka, 1992, 2001; Rhodes, 2012) and is more broadly part of the “science, movement and
practice” of agroecology (Wezel et al., 2009). Andhra Pradesh’s natural farming focuses on healthy soils and landscape regeneration, highly diversified and synergistic crop/livestock/tree production, no pesticide or synthetic fertilizer use, indigenous seeds, limited tillage and local preparations using
cow dung and urine to boost soil and plant health, pre-monsoon dry sowing (PMDS), high involvement and leadership of women self-help groups (SHG), and farmer-centred learning (for more details on technical and institutional innovations, and bibliographic references, see Dorin, 2022). Less than five years later, as of April 2020, APCNF was already being practiced by around 700,000 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, with the hope that it would increase to 6 million farmers by 2027, on 6.2 million hectares of agricultural land.Continue Reading Here
Agro-industry vs agroecology? Two Contrasting Scenarios for 2050 in Andhra Pradesh, India
