India, with a population of 145 crore, is self-reliant in its food and nutritional requirements. Over the last 70 years, this has been achieved partly by expanding the area under agriculture and intensifying practices largely during the green revolution. With an annual increase in demand of 2-3 per cent for food, India must grow 50 per cent more food by 2050.
India is likely to fall short of this food demand by 2050. To continue with the current regime of intensive agriculture — which relies heavily on chemical fertilisers that have led to the decline in soil health to alarming levels — is not an option. Sole reliance on such a wasteful, energy-intensive, fossil fuel-based agriculture system seriously risks India’s food, nutritional and ecological security.
A recent State of the Food and Agriculture report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) highlights the growing social, health, and environmental costs of global agriculture and food systems. These costs total $12 trillion annually. While the current ways of producing can fulfil the calorific requirements of more than 8 billion people worldwide, it yields a massive cost to our society and the environment. The FAO report states that the Indian agrifood system has hidden costs that include damages to health, environment, and society.
The continuous addition of synthetic fertilisers over the past six decades has reduced the soil organic carbon content from a healthy national average of 2.4 per cent in 1947 to merely 0.4 per cent today. This is alarming and well below the threshold of 1.5 per cent, which is essential for maintaining soil’s arable properties. Not only has it affected the prospects of food security, but it has also cost India a huge sum of Rs 47.7 lakh crore over the last 70 years ($564 billion), amounting to Rs 68,243 crore per year ($8.06 billion) in lost carbon value.
These costs are in addition to the current Rs 2 lakh crore per year ($25 billion) subsidy to the fertiliser industry. Synthetic fertilisers also cause about 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e), costing Rs 14,813 crore per year ($1.75 billion). These subsidies support the wasteful use of synthetic fertilisers that directly reduce soil organic content, generate enormous greenhouse gas emissions and seriously risk India’s food, nutritional, and ecological security.
Due to this loss of soil health, the response ratio of fertilisers has declined from 12.1 kg of grain per kg NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) in 1960-69 to a mere 5.1 kg grain per kg NPK in 2010-17. If such trends continue, India could face food shortages as early as 2035, partly due to an increase in food demand by a growing population, productivity losses due to climatic impacts, loss of soil health and declining response to synthetic fertilisers. Indian agriculture cannot succeed if soil health fails.
India must, therefore, seek a climate-resilient, nature-based, alternative agriculture model that reduces the risks associated with intensive agriculture, improves the productivity and the livelihoods of farmers, while respecting planetary boundaries, and not damage human health. India needs to mainstream such agriculture to ensure its food, nutritional and ecological security.
The Prime Minister’s National Mission on Natural Farming to safeguard Indian agriculture stands against these risks. We need to fully appreciate the value created by sustainable agriculture practices. Regenerative farming based on the principles of agroecology can help reduce input costs, improve soil health, promote judicious use of groundwater, reduce the depletion of natural resources, and, at the same time, increase farm productivity and profits. One recent study found that community-managed natural farming also improved the health of farmers, farm workers, their families, and consumers by successfully building social capital in rural India.
Based on such evidence, India must redesign its agriculture to sustain its food, nutritional and ecological security. It is possible by identifying and scaling up systems that utilise ecological intensification, such as natural or regenerative farming.
The proponents of the currently dominant agricultural practices continue to rely on synthetic inputs in farming systems and promote sustainable intensification instead. While sustainable intensification involves increasing productivity per unit area by utilising inputs more efficiently, ecological intensification is the only promising way to mitigate the risks to Indian agriculture. It also includes increasing efficiencies of agricultural inputs and partially replacing non-renewable resources such as synthetic pesticides and fertilisers with renewable resources such as ecosystem services based on biological pest control, nutrient cycling, enhancing soil health, and improving biodiversity.
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A redesign of agriculture in India needs to focus on radical transformation by adopting regenerative farming and not relying merely on managing the existing intensive system, understanding and practising agroecological principles, enhancing social capital and relying on knowledge-intensive systems, which are supported by participatory and decentralised pedagogies.
Intensive and longitudinal field research across all 15 agro-climatic zones in the country will only be able to scientifically establish the true benefits of regenerative farming and generate the necessary evidence, raising awareness at the local and national levels about climate resilience and the health and environmental impact of regenerative agriculture. The ground-level evidence, placed in the public domain, will help create the political will and policy framework leading to the development of a scale-up model for the uptake of regenerative farming across India. It will also contribute to the country’s vision of achieving “net zero status” by 2070.
Sandhu is professor and director at Federation University, Australia, and Kumar is the former vice chairman, NITI Aayog and chairman of Pahle India Foundation
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