Scaling-up agroecology through policy support and Farmer Field Schools on Community-based Natural Farming

Strategic Objective 2: Make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable

Objectives: Scaling-up and evidence on agroecology through Community-based Natural Farming by strengthening methodologies and capacities to improve farmer livelihoods and ecosystem resilience.

Description: Increasing costs of cultivation, stagnating and unstable yields and instability of prices have made farming in India an increasingly risky and non-viable enterprise. Crop losses are significant due to more frequent droughts, floods, and pest and disease outbreaks. Like many other Indian states, Andhra Pradesh faces continuous degradation of soil quality, ecosystem services and biodiversity, and lowered water table levels in most districts. Worrisome levels of pesticide residues beyond permissible Maximum Residue Limits in food have been evidenced in a number of recent studies conducted in the State and at national level. The Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh ranks highest for pesticide consumption per hectare in the country.

To tackle this crisis, the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) engaged in a massive programme to promote and scale-up Community-based Natural Farming, (CNF) in the State. GoAP also declared 2018 as the ‘Year of Natural Farming’. Andhra Pradesh CNF (APCNF) was aimed to implement an alternative paradigm for agriculture development by increasing investments in rural areas in diverse and locally specific agro-ecosystems based on intensive ecological interactions between soils, water, plants, animals, and trees, and by moving farmers from grain monocultures to poly-cropping, horticulture and integrated agro-forestry and livestock systems. The premise was that diverse agroecological systems were likely to be more productive, labour intensive, and provide enhanced ecosystem services. Further, this was supported by rural economic activity in the secondary and tertiary sectors generating value addition, through local processing, small-scale production of sustainable inputs, and fast-growing domestic and local markets.

In 2017, GoAP formally requested FAO’s help to support its CNF initiative. Specific issues focused on during the project were: Addressing the limited scientific and economic understanding of the underpinnings of CNF; Working on a capacity development approach of the CNF programme; and Improved evidence sharing and scaling-up of CNF outside Andhra. With support from FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division (AGP), activities under this TCP included: piloting of training of facilitators and farmers through Farmer Field Schools and support in outreach and lessons sharing (social media, press, international conferences, facilitation of meetings with international partners etc). APCNF was selected as a success case at the FAO Symposium on Agroecology in April 2018 and has been included in the “Agroecology Scaling-Up Initiative” led by Rome-Based UN Agencies1. During the World Food Day 2018, the APCNF Programme was awarded an Honourable Mention as Best Policy on Agroecology by the World Future Council, FAO and IFOAM.

Donor: FAO

Expected Outputs:

• The potential impacts of a massive scaling up of CNF in Andhra Pradesh are better understood, and methodologies for foresight analysis are available
• Support the development of methodologies and tools for design of agroecological CNF farms and implementation of FFS
• The capacities of farmers and trainers and the training approach of the CNF programme are strengthened through Farmer Field Schools and experiential learning
• M&E methodologies and lessons learning developed including with FAO Agroecology Scaling-up Initiative