Regenerative Agriculture For a Resilient India

Syllabus: GS3/Agriculture

In News

• Regenerative Agriculture is supporting  long-term agricultural production, environmental sustainability and farm profitability.

About

• India’s agriculture and allied industries have shown a decadal increase of 4.45% over FY16-FY25.
• To support this expansion the ecological roots of farming must be restored. 
• Intensive farming causes abuse of chemicals, poor soil health and irregular rainfall that lead to increasing cost of inputs, aggravating climate shocks and making small and marginal farmers more vulnerable. 
• However, regenerative agriculture can help restore soil health, ecosystem services, boost climate resilience and minimise dependency on external inputs. 

Regenerative agriculture 

• It is a holistic strategy to farming that seeks to restore soil health and improve biodiversity.
  • Its aim is to guarantee the long-term productivity and resilience of farming systems. Healthy soils yield more food and nutrition, sequester more carbon, and are home to biodiversity. 

Practices come under regenerative agriculture

• Micro-irrigation systems: It delivers water to the roots of plants including foggers, sprinklers and drippers. This indicates low wasting of water and excellent water use efficiency. 
• Farm Mechanisation: It is the use of machines and equipment to ease and automate some farm operations in agriculture.
  • It helps to optimise the critical inputs like water, fuel and fertilisers thereby lowering waste and carbon footprint.
• Managing Nitrogen Fertiliser: The secret is to select the suitable fertiliser and to use it at the right time in the right amount. 
• Natural farming: An agricultural approach based on indigenous knowledge systems of India and free from chemicals.
  • The technique is based on utilisation of biological inputs like Beejamrut, Jeevamrut, GhanJeevamrut, Neemastra and Dashparni created from the inputs of native cattle. 
• Integrated Farming System (IFS): It is a broad approach to farm production systems, in which more than one farm firm is integrated in a single system.
  • It encourages strategies like intercropping, crop rotation, multi-cropping and mixed farming that make the best use of resources. 
• Agroforestry: It is the amalgamation of fruit and plantation crops with perennial tree systems to evolve a more sustainable and profitable farming method. 
• Climate-Resilient Agriculture (CRA): Refers to practices and technology that enhance the capacity of agricultural systems to cope with climate change-related stresses and shocks. 

Benefits of Regenerative Farming

• Environmental Impacts
  • Soil restoration: Regenerative approaches restore soil organic matter, soil structure and long term soil fertility resulting in sustained agricultural productivity.
  • Improved biodiversity:  Regenerative practices provide a higher diversity of pollinators, beneficial insects and soil microbes. And so the whole ecology is in sync.
  • Climate change mitigation: These technologies take more carbon out of the environment than they put in, effectively cancelling emissions from farming.
    • Regenerative agriculture is highly aligned with SDG 13 (Climate Action). 
  • Water efficiency : Healthy soil holds more water, which means less run-off.
    • It also benefits aquatic systems by reducing erosion of soil and transporting sediments and toxins to streams and lakes.
• Economic and Social Outcomes
  • Profitability: Healthier soils imply less synthetic fertilizer, pesticide and irrigation.
    • It reduces input costs, stabilises yields and increases farmers’ net revenues.
  • Job creation:  Regenerative agriculture creates new jobs in farming, advice services, technology and ecological management.
  • More resilient:  Regenerative farms are more resilient to changes in climate and market conditions.

Challenges 

• Transition Lag and Temporary Yield Losses: Soils take 3 to 5 years to rebuild naturally occurring microbial activity; hence yields may decrease somewhat before rebounding and exceeding input costs.
• High Upfront Capital: Specialised equipment such as no-till seed drills or rotational livestock fence requires a substantial initial outlay.
• Knowledge and Labour Deficit: The generic chemical schedules are not suited for the diversity of crops and rotational grazing needs, which require wide regional agronomic knowledge.
• Policy and Certification Gaps: Many areas still sustain conventional chemical-intensive commercial crops and official regeneration certifications are in process.

Targeted Interventions

• National Mission for Natural Farming: It was announced in 2024 develops an enabling support ecosystem to assist farmers to steadily shift to natural farming.
  • It gives an output based incentive of ₹4,000 per acre each year for two years for a maximum of one acre per farmer. 
  • It envisages establishment of 10,000 need-based Bio-input Resource Centers to ensure simple access for farmers to bio-inputs like Jeevamrit and Beejamrit. 
• Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), launched in 2015, has become a key pillar of India’s organic agriculture movement. 
• More Crop Per Drop : The country has been implementing Per Drop More Crop (PDMC) since 2015-16.
  •  It promotes the increase in the efficiency of the use of water in fields through micro-irrigation systems, especially drip and spray irrigation. 
• Rainfed Area Development Project (RADP):  It has been implemented through area based cluster technique for support of Integrated Farming System (IFS) since 2014-15.
  • It involves a more robust use of existing methodologies and a greater engagement with the community. Farmers are motivated Rs 30000/- per family for adoption of IFS System.
    • Each cluster will also get a stipend of 10,000 to aid in training and capacity building activities. 
• Sub-Mission on Agroforestry: The previous Sub-Mission on Agroforestry (SMAF) has been reformed as Agroforestry Component under Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (PM-RKVY) w.e.f. 2023-24.
  • It encourages the setting up of agroforestry nurseries for Quality Planting Material (QPM) for farmers.
• Soil Health Card Scheme: The Soil Health Card Scheme (SHC) was launched in 2015 and delivers plot-wise soil test findings, through scientific testing, to farmers for each landholding. 

Source :PIB