Background note on

Research on Agroecology: Recent Trends and Challenges1

The modern agriculture failed to contextualize agriculture in the socio-economic and

ecological context of the country. This has resulted in deep agrarian crisis both
economically and ecologically. This severe economic and ecological crisis in agriculture
prompted several innovations towards agroecological approaches. Several individuals/
groups/ organisations are involved in innovation and promotion of such models. Most
of the Livelihoods based initiatives of government of India focused on Agroecological
approaches.

Internationally, several studies like the ones by International Assessment of

Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) or
nationally by Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research have unequivocally stressed
the need to shift towards agroecological approaches in farming. The new challenges
thrown by the climate change also requires a shift towards agroecological approaches
as they have both mitigative as well as adaptive capacities.

All the experiences across the country also shows that the solution to the agrarian crisis
lays only in changing production systems, i.e., shifting from high external input based
models to regenerative models, shifting from monocultures to integrated practices, etc.
and in changing production relations, i.e., between the producer, the labor, the
trader, the consumer and in improving access to production resources in ways that
ensure gender and social equity.

This calls for a fundamental paradigm shift in the scientific research from productivity
centric approach to ecological sustainability approach. This can be built on the already
available experiences from models established and being promoted across the country
by various farmer innovators, NGOs/Organisations and others.

Characterising the new revolution: The main objective of this new Agro-ecological
revolution in agriculture is internalising the inputs and is based on principles of the
ecological farming viz., a) locally adopted cropping systems, b) based on crop and
genetic diversity, c) locally adopted seed, d) improving soil and crop ecology to have
ecological balance of insects and microbes, e) conserving and effective use of local
natural resources like soil, water, biomass. These set of practices and behind have
evolved from reinterpreting, refining the traditional farming practices with modern
scientific learnings. As many believe this is not continuation of the old traditional
practices which are not relevant today but contemporary innovations with newer
understanding of agro-ecology evolved at different nodes by farmers, civil society
organisations and few agriculture scientists. These new practices and new products
have shown very promising results. Based on the location specific problems and the
expertise of the individuals and organisations there were several starting points for this
new revolution. For example, Deccan Development Society working in dryland areas of
Medak dist focused initiated works with millet based mixed cropping systems and

1
Background note for the Session on ‘Scientific Round Table on Research on Agroecology: recent trends and
challenges” at Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, on 3rd November, 2018 Presented by Dr. G. V. Ramanjaneyulu,
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture ramoo@csa-india.org
moved on to seed conservation and to ecological agriculture which provide food
security to the farmers. The Biofarming initiative supported by All India People Science
Network supported by Vigyan Prasar of Department of Science and Technology has
shown that agro ecological approaches can help to sustain farming.

Centre for Sustainable working in high commercial crop growing areas of Andhra
Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab focused on Non Pesticidal Management which do not
use chemical pesticides but uses farmers knowledge and ecological practices to manage
the pests. The initiatives by Agriculture Officers like Surendra Dalal and Rajendra Singh
in Jind in Haryana have shown that by improving insect literacy farmers can manage the
insects without depending on the insecticides. Once convinced about managing the
pests without pesticides it became easy for farmers to adopt viable soil productivity
management and seed conservation practices even in the commercial crops.

India is one of the rich mega-biodiversity hotspots in the world. Unfortunately, the in
the name of modernizing agriculture much of this diversity evolved over years to suit to
particular situation and use has been replaced by a very narrow range of crops and
varieties. Initiatives by people like Natwar Saranghi from Odisha, Ghani and Nagappa in
Karnataka, Dr. Debal Deb in Odisha and West Bengal to conserve and revive traditional
varieties have shown that there are several traditional varieties which outperform the
modern varieties in terms of adapting to particular situations and more specifically with
specific characters. Farmer Breeders like Kobragade from Maharashtra, Prakash
Raghuvansi from Utter Pradesh, Kongara Ramesh from Andhra Pradesh have bred
several new varieties in crops like paddy, wheat, redgram, groundnut etc. Initiatives by
organizations like Deccan Development Society, Sahaja Samrudda, Beej Bacho Andolan,
Navadanya have institutionalized the conservation efforts and Centre for Sustainable
Agriculture,

On managing soils effectively Similarly the Zero Budget Natural Farming initiatives by
Sri Subash Palekar in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab and Late Dr. Nammalvar as
Organic Farming in Tamil Nadu, use various cow dung/urine based preparations to
improve soil fertility and pest and disease management.

Agronomic innovations like System of Rice Cultivation which was initiated in

Madagascar and now practiced world over including many states of India has showed
rice can be cultivated without ponding water and excessive use of chemical fertilisers
and pesticides. The learnings were extended further for wheat, sugarcane, ragi and
other crops too. Similarly individual plant culture by adopting wider spacing has shown
to yield more in red gram and castor. While all these results were from fertile, moisture
rich areas, The High Density Plantation System with Desi cotton varieties initiated by
Central Institute of Cotton research proved that by increasing the plant population in
rainfed areas, shallow soils the productivity per acre can be improved though per plant
productivity would be lower.

Scaling up: These initiatives started as small experiments and took years to
understand the principles and establish on a scale. These are scaled up on to a large
scale. There are more than 10 lakh farmers across the country who have are now
practising the natural farming which is promoted by Sri Subash Palekar. In Andhra
united Andhra Pradesh NPM has spread to more than 35 lakh acres in more than 11,000
villages by collaborative work of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, Mandal
Mahila Samakhyas between 2004-2010. After the state bifurcation, the state is all set to
go fully Natural by 2027. Similarly there are lakhs of farmers who follow Dr.
Nammalwar and practice organic farming in Tamil Nadu.

All these experiences have clearly showed that a) all the production inputs can be
internalised into the farm and local resources, farmers knowledge and skills can
effectively replace external purchased inputs, b) new theories and new interpretations
are required to understand these practices, c) we don’t need astronomical quantities of
inputs, d) productivity of crop and soil can be maintained and enhanced, e) these
practices are not highly difficult or labor intensive but simple and easy to practice, and
f) these practices and models of agriculture can be easily scaled up to larger scale
provided proper support systems and institutional systems are in place.

Having said all this, there is also a need to evolve an agroecological framework which
can be used for assessing such experiences as many of them are also driven by belief
systems, adapted to local conditions and may lack scientific rationality. In this
background there are also doubts raised both at the governments level as well as at
farmers level as each school of thought provide contradicting information about the
shift towards organic/natural/zero budget natural/yogic/homa agriculture. We need
scientific and rational approach to assess the claims made on the functionality as well as
results of the approaches. The new approach has to focus on developing from practices
to theory.

Some of the major initiatives across the country on promotion of alternative models of
agriculture which established large models include
• Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture in AP/Telangana from 2005 to
2010 which covered over 35 lakh acres to promote Non Pesticidal Management.
• Mahila Krishi Sasakthikaran Pariyojana (MKSP) as part of National Rural
Livelihoods Mission
• Paramparagat Kheti Vikas Yojana (PKVY) across the country
• Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region
• Organic farming policies in 10 states
• Natural Farming initiative in AP, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala

The research needs are

• New knowledge on Crop ecosystem
• Efficacy of locally evolved recipes and formulations in organic/natural farming
• Economics of ecological benefits particularly in the climate change adaptation
• Newer protocols to validate
• More participatory methods of knowledge and technology generation from
linear top down models
• Farmers and NGOs and as partners in knowledge and technology generation than
as passive recipients