Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (officially abbreviated as APCNF), which was launched in 2016 in Andhra Pradesh, India is a paradigm shift in agricultural development. For the first time in the country, a state government has acknowledged and admitted the pitfalls of seed-water-fertilizer models promoted by the Green Revolution and proposed to replace it with community-managed natural farming.

APCNF is an agroecological farming approach. APCNF believes that the soil already has all the nutrients necessary for plant growth. There is no need for adding any external inputs to supply nutrients. Instead, the existing nutrients have to be released and made available for the plants. APCNF facilitates this process. Beejamrutham (treating of seeds with microbial), Jeevamrutham (incorporation of microorganism into soils), Acchadana (mulching), and Waaphasa (aeration) are the four core APCNF farming practices. In order to protect crops from pests and insects, APCNF prescribes a number of natural fungicides and pesticides, known as Kashayams and Asthrams, made from locally available ingredients like neem leaves, Chillies, garlic, tobacco, sour buttermilk, etc.

Diversification of cropping pattern is another key feature of APCNF. Under APCNF, different crops are intensively grown in a variety of ways. These include crop rotation, mixed cropping, internal cropping, border cropping and bund cropping, pre-monsoon dry sowing (PMDS) cropping, etc. One of the great innovations under this intervention is the introduction of multitier cropping models, known as 5-layer model and 7-layer model.

The study has been conducted in the Kharif season of 2019-2020, including late sown Kharif crops and early sown Rabi crops during the year. The field data was collected between 19 November 2019 and 29 February 2020. The study has focussed on 13 major crops cultivated across the state, during the study period. The crops include: Paddy, Maize, Bengal gram,  Groundnut,  Cotton,  Jowar, Chillies, Black gram,  Ragi,  Red gram,  Sugarcane,  Onion and  Turmeric.

The evaluation methodology is based on what is known as ''with and without approach'' wherein the outcomes of a random sample of APCNF farmers cultivating a particular crop are compared with the outcomes of a random sample of farmers cultivating the same crop using chemical inputs.

APCNF provides yield benefits in two streams - economic and ecological. The economic benefits include reduction in cost of cultivation, increase in net returns from cultivation, reduction in input and credit market dependencies, and output fluctuations/ slumps. The environmental benefits include improvement in the soil quality, enhancement of environmental services. Food quality, improves as food is free from poisonous chemical residuals. Overwhelming percentages of farmers reported several economic, health and environmental benefits due to APCNF such as increase in soil quality, increase crop resilience to weather anomalies, perceptions about farming, reduction in family health expenditure, improvement in family financial condition.