End of Initiative Report of Agroecology: ICRISAT Longitudinal Impact Assessment of Natural Farming on Soil Health, Microbial Diversity, and their Interconnected Response Functions in Andhra Pradesh
2024
Jat, Mangi L. | Rooyen, Andre F. van | Singh, Ramesh | Pasumarthi, Rajesh | Choudhari, Pushpajeet
The key component of the initiative focuses on building scientific evidence on the agroecology based natural farming practices carried out by small and marginal farmers from Andhra Pradesh state of India. Agroecology is the foundation of community-managed natural farming (CMNF), formerly known as zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF), which is a form of regenerative agriculture and was launched by the Andhra Pradesh government in 2016. CMNF is focused on giving away with chemical pesticides and fertilizers entirely. The program's objective was to promote the use of all-encompassing natural farming methods to counteract a variety of environmental and financial stresses, including declining soil quality, diminishing water supplies, biodiversity loss, and loss of farmer livelihoods. Natural farming (NF) is a diversified farming system based on agroecology that combines crops, trees, and livestock, allowing for functional biodiversity. It significantly reduces production costs by using indigenous microbial consortiums (IMC) such as Jeevamritha, Ghanajeevamritha, Beejamritha, Panchagavya, etc. substituting chemical fertilizers and pesticides, complemented with intercropping and mulching. Andhra Pradesh community-managed natural farming is highlighted as one of the alternative farming practices for improving farmers’ income, in the present scenario of declining fertilizer response and farm income, and the prevalence of smallholder farmers in India (68.5 percent marginal and 17.7 percent small farmers). With their growing “symbiotic” and "probiotic" understandings of soil and plant life, biological sciences such as ecology, soil science, and microbiology are crucial fields for building resilient farming systems.
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