Restoring Degraded Lands: Natural Farming Shows The Way

As we approach World Environment Day, it is important to acknowledge that we are in a climate 'poly-crisis' a series of interconnected and compounding crises across sectors.

One of the biggest risks as part of this crisis has been the consistent land degradation and desertification across the globe. Land degradation affects almost 2 billion hectares of land worldwide. Every year, 24 billion tons of fertile soils are lost due to erosion and 12 million hectares of land are degraded each year (23 hectares per minute). By 2019, 30.50 million hectares was reported as degraded land i.e. 9.45% of total land in India.

Since COP26 in Glasgow, there has been a global recognition that climate change is intrinsically linked to food systems. The current agri-food system, dependent on conventional monocropping practices and synthetic fertilizers, has resulted in drastic soil degradation and desertification leading to the depletion of vital nutrients for plant growth, chemical 'burns' to crops and soil acidification.

In Andhra Pradesh in India, however, an alternate path has been traversed to address the impact of land degradation on farmer livelihoods and planetary health and reverse land degradation. The Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming (APCNF) model - started in 2016 by Government of Andhra Pradesh has demonstrated that scaled, low-cost alternative systems, mimicking nature is the most powerful way forward to address the land degradation crises. Since 2016, over a million farmers across the state have engaged in Natural Farming, primarily anchored by the state's women Self Help Groups and collectives.

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