- The central government plans to set up thousands of bio-inputs resource centres (BRCs) to help farmers transition to natural farming.
- However, evidence from outcomes of past attempts at non-chemical transitioning in agriculture, reveals challenges in on-ground implementation, particularly in states where economic incentives favour chemical fertilisers.
- The success of BRCs will depend on technological innovations that can prolong the shelf life of the bio-inputs, and the measures to increase organic inputs must prove economically meaningful to farmers, write the authors of this commentary.
- The views in this commentary are that of the authors.
In the union budget 2024, the emphasis on low-carbon farming practices, breeding crops for climate stress, and a non-populistic approach, seemed to be the hallmark for agriculture. The cut in fertiliser allocation is a bold political move, given the upward trend in fertiliser consumption observed since 2017. The call for breeding for climate stress tolerance brings much needed focus back on agricultural research. The commitment to transitioning one crore farmers to natural farming, while adopting a value chain and branding approach is commendable for its mitigation emphasis.
However, forward linkages through branding and certification, and the backward linkage through the bio-input resource centres (BRCs) would help ensure sustainability of this transition. Certification would help distinguish natural farming outputs and fetch premium prices for products and improve profitability. Whereas, BRCs will provide farmers access to bio resources in which animal manure, neem and bio culture play an important role. The government intends to set up 10,000 need-based bio-input resource centres (BRCs).
This proposal will help address issues of raw material paucity, high maintenance cost of cattle, and the labour-intensiveness of bio-input production processes, which are the most cited factors that limit natural and other non-chemical input-based farming practices from being scaled up.
Read more: Budget balances coalition demands, job challenges and green initiatives
Organic and natural farming policies
The budget is high on intent with specific commitments on transitioning farming in India to a low-carbon pathway. However, the real test of the commitment will be in its translation on ground. A case in point is the outcome of the Organic Farming Policy, 2005, which was a response to sustainability concerns in Indian agriculture. Organic farming receives both central and state support, with policy documents outlining specific institutional, technological, input and certification support to promote it.
The 2005 policy was complemented by the Paramparagrat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) in 2015, which focuses on soil health management and certification, and demonstration of Model Organic Clusters and Model Organic Farms. Despite these policies, organic farming to this day remains a niche, with less than two percent of India’s net sown area under organic production. The PKVY had only 29,859 farmers in 2020. Low productivity, and a lack of forward linkages in terms of lucrative and inclusive markets, continue to be cited as obstacles to making the transition, sustainable.
The National Mission on Natural Farming proposed to set up one BRC per 50 ha cluster from 2022-23 to 2025-26. The BRCs are expected to go a long way in encouraging more farmers to adopt natural farming practices.
However, the success of these centres will depend on processes and technological innovations that will contribute to increasing the shelf life of the bio-inputs used in natural farming. A well-defined operational guideline on adherence to quality standards and checks of both raw materials used and the bio-inputs produced should be formulated. Standardised production protocols and regulations will improve farmer confidence in the BRCs.
Godhan Nyay Yojana: A reality check
Lessons from the Godhan Nyay Yojana (GNY) in Chhattisgarh, a sub-national level pilot experiment, would provide useful insights on aspects of economic viability and feasibility of BRCs in transition to non-chemical farming systems, across diverse agro-ecologies. The scheme aimed to facilitate easy availability of organic fertilisers at nominal cost. By allowing livestock owners to sell cow dung in bio-composting centres called gothans (cow shelters), the scheme was meant to generate local stocks of organic manure, compost it, and sell it back to farmers at affordable rates. In so doing, it employed the state’s self-help-groups in composting cow dung, producing vermicompost, packaging and selling. The scheme was celebrated as a success. However, interactions with farmers on the ground revealed significant design flaws.
Our field study on GNY in the Janjgir Champa district of Chhattisgarh revealed interesting insights. The district has 306 gothans which managed to produce up to 75,380.36 quintals of vermicompost and sell 67,571.79 quintals of it through Primary Agricultural Co-operatives Societies located in each village. The insights shared here are based on interactions carried out in the predominantly paddy belts of Pamgarh and Akaltara taluks of Janjgir Champa district in Chhattisgarh.
Paddy is a major crop in Chhattisgarh, with the state accounting for 8.61% and 6.30% of the area and production of paddy in the country respectively. The demand for the government-supplied vermicompost was reportedly less among paddy farmers, considering they had been cultivating high yield varieties with urea and DAP for years. They prioritised economics over environmental externalities and were not willing to give up on high yields delivered by chemical fertilisers to make a complete transition to organic manure. Compromising on yields also meant compromising on their ability to leverage the state’s lucrative support prices in paddy which quantitatively incentivises yield per acre, rather than the quality of crops.
Meanwhile, the Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana incentivised paddy cultivators with a production bonus going up to Rs.10,000 per acre, over and above the central minimum support price (MSP). Therefore, in the case of paddy, the state had policies with conflicting outcomes, which made transitioning to sustainable non-chemical input-based farming system a challenge. This is of significance, as paddy accounts for more than 80% of the kharif area in the state.
Low stakeholder participation
The gothans in Chhattisgarh were an important source of organic compost for farmers without livestock. The GNY served as an affordable centralised source for these groups for whom sourcing farm-generated manure was not an option. However, the demand for bio-inputs from GNY was very low among those who sold cow dung for income, as they sold only the surplus dung after meeting their household manure needs. To overcome this low demand, the state government resorted to purchasing their compost to drive sales, adding to the cultivation costs of farmers.
The ability of gothans to supply bio-inputs was directly linked to the participation of farmers selling cow dung and the number of livestock in their ownership. Hence, there was significant variation in the number of active sellers, and therefore, the ability of each taluk to procure cow dung for composting. This variation depended on how economically useful the sellers found the scheme in terms of remunerative prices.
Low supply of cow dung had its own set of implications as well. Gothans which had a sub-optimal number of cow dung sellers, reported administrative pressures on local bodies such as panchayats to deliver on quotas for cow dung procured and sale of compost. Sometimes, the officials sourced cow dung from sources other than local farmers, to meet targets, which often was not supported by sufficient budgetary allocations.
The performance of gothans also depended on other embedded processes and stakeholders. The number of gothans and the number of SHGs working with them also determined how much bio-input could be generated, with some villages having several and some none. Primary Agricultural Marketing Co-operatives ran out of stock, when in November 2023, the scheme was abruptly closed, closing all gothans and disbanding the SHGs who were employed there. A paucity of compost for those utilising the scheme was reported after its closure.
The need for a systemic approach for BRCs
Our field interactions revealed challenges the schemes faced at various levels: the stakeholders they engage, the processes involved, and failure to realise intended outcomes. Therefore, when developing BRCs, policymakers must carefully consider raw material sources, their processes, funding and infrastructure, and examine how these relate to the larger ecology and traditional forms of input generation. Farmers’ aspirations, their interactions and limitations within existing market systems should also be examined. Although most farmers acknowledge the importance of bio-inputs in cultivating safe, resilient, and healthy crops, they are unable to holistically integrate it in their cultivation practices despite their availability.
Policies for non-chemical farming transition, which fail to account for the larger systems of production and distributions farmers are embedded in, are bound to fall short of meeting their objectives. Measures to increase organic inputs must integrate themselves into larger value chains, and prove economically meaningful to farmers. For catalytic transitioning to non-chemical-based farming at scale, the attempts at branding, certification, and bio-input resource centres need to be complemented with concrete efforts at reconciling issues of low productivity and economic returns associated with natural farming, during and after the gestation period.
Joshua Lobo is Research Associate and M. Manjula is Faculty at the School of Development, Azim Premji University.
Banner image: Farmer distributes fertiliser in the farm. Image by EqualStock IN via Pexels (CC).
Credits
