Natural farming: Creating a viable support system is vital
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The conflict in the Gulf has exposed the vulnerability of global energy and fertilizer markets. Further, the prospect of El Niño-induced climatic stress threatens agricultural production across many regions. These external shocks are likely to transmit into domestic economic vulnerability through rising input costs and supply disruptions.The Prime Minister’s recent appeal for greater resource consciousness, including a shift towards natural farming, was made against precisely such a backdrop of external vulnerability.Natural farming has become a resilience imperative and not an ideological proposition. India’s food systems remain heavily dependent on imported fertilizers, fossil fuels, groundwater extraction and other external inputs, even as climate change compounds these vulnerabilities. Resilience must therefore become a central agricultural objective.Political signalImportantly, the political signalling already exists. The Centre has launched the National Mission on Natural Farming, while PM-PRANAM was conceived to encourage States to reduce their dependence on chemical fertilizers. Several States — from Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat to Kerala and parts of the North-East — have announced NF/ Agroecology/Organic-transition policies. Yet the uncomfortable truth is that policy declarations have outpaced institutional preparation.Andhra Pradesh’s pioneering natural farming programme has demonstrated both the possibilities and complexities of such transitions. Its recent recognition through the Food Planet Prize 2026, one of the world’s largest food-system awards, has drawn international attention to the effort. Yet its experience underlines a simple lesson: natural farming requires long-term institution building, sustained handholding and robust support systems before it can be realised at landscape scale.The Green Revolution succeeded because the state painstakingly built a complete ecosystem around it — seeds, irrigation, fertilizers, extension services, agricultural universities, procurement systems, MSP support, rural credit and markets.Building ecosystemsNatural farming today has no comparable architecture. That is why the debate must move beyond declarations and acreage targets.The FAO’s agroecology framework already provides a broad institutional template. Its principles — diversity, recycling, resilience, local knowledge, farmer participation, circular economies and supportive institutions — underline that sustainable agriculture cannot emerge through isolated interventions alone. States now have to adapt these principles to local conditions and institutionalise them through mission-mode programmes with dedicated staffing, research, extension and market support systems.A more practical approach would be for each State to identify a few contiguous clusters — a block or perhaps 20-30 villages — and saturate them with institutional support. These “living landscapes” should include trained field facilitators, bio-input resource centres, FPOs, soil-health monitoring, demonstration plots, transition finance and market linkages.Such efforts should span diverse agroecologies, including selected commercial crop belts, so that evidence emerges from a variety of farming systems.ICAR, SAUs, and KVKs must engage seriously with the science of transition. The food-security objection must also be addressed honestly. Sri Lanka’s failed overnight fertilizer ban is often cited as proof that ecological transition itself is flawed. It proves no such thing. The real lesson is that abrupt decree without preparation, sequencing and institutional support can damage agriculture. India needs carefully designed transition pathways. Markets will be as important as agronomy. Farmers cannot be expected to embrace natural farming, if market signals favour input-intensive production systems.India’s SHG movement began modestly in a few pockets of undivided Andhra Pradesh before evolving into one of the world’s largest rural livelihood programmes through sustained institution building and social mobilisation. Natural farming NF may require a similar long-horizon approach.The writer is former Deputy Managing Director, NABARD. Views are personalPublished on August 6, 2026
