CHENNAI: Working for over seven years in the food supply chain, WayCool Foods has currently pursued to address the difficulties faced in the pre-harvest (soil) stage of the farming process. They initiated a digital platform called Outgrow in 2018-2019 to address farming issues through regenerative agriculture methods. “One of the things with regard to Regenerative agriculture is to enrich the soil,” says Sendhil Kumar, head of Outgrow and Farmer Engagement.
In January, the organisation started Suya Samridhi, a cluster development programme where they scaled the practice of regenerative agriculture in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala to educate farmers to utilise existing resources and become self-sustainable.
Excerpts from the interview
What does Suya Samridhi aim to do?
It simply means self-prosperity and self-resilient. It aims to focus on building capacity and the necessary ecosystem for the Indian farming community to overcome the negative impacts of climate change and conventional farming practices, resources (soil health and water availability), pest-disease risk, productivity, and overall income. It strives to help farmers in the ever-growing agro landscape while educating them to utilise existing resources to become self-sustainable.
What kind of activities are involved in Suya Samridhi?
Farmers will have access to the right information, know-how’s, and resources to address challenges in soil, water, and pest-disease management. The programme demonstrates sustainable and profitable income to the farmers by adopting efficient resource management, intercropping techniques, and good agricultural practices. It will also enable the practices of using natural inputs based on regenerative farming which have the potential to sequester GHG emissions from agriculture and agroforestry practices which minimise adverse climate impact. It will further enable a continuous supply of high-quality residue-free produce to the end consumers.
How will regenerative agriculture help farmers?
Regenerative agriculture is a practice aiming to promote soil health by restoring soil’s organic carbon in terms of minimum soil disturbance, crop diversification, livestock integration, growing cover crops, adopting crop rotation and rotational grazing. The World Resources Report on “Creating a Sustainable Food Future” laid out regenerative agriculture as one of the 22 solutions to cut emissions by two-thirds while still feeding a likely population of 10 billion (by 2050). In natural farming or in regenerative farming, it is very important to first work on the soil, because it is the base for any growth or cultivation. The soil should be enriched and secondly the water should be available to the plants.
There are many techniques like mulching, no-till which is essentially not disturbing the soil and the microorganisms that are present in the soil and cover crops to protect against evaporation. So, these form the process in terms of cultivation in regenerative agriculture. We also strive to bring in biodiversity to manage pests and diseases, through border crops, and trap crops which will help reduce disease on the crop.
Farmers find the cost involved in the conventional type of crop cultivation high and monocropping is most prevalent. Use of synthetic inputs are causing degradation of soil, contamination of water, pest and disease patterns developing resistance. Through crop diversification and usage of natural inputs for plant nutrition and crop protection regenerative practices can address the issues.
How are regenerative methods different from traditional farming?
In today’s conventional farming approach, crops and livestock production are typically kept separate. Regenerative agriculture combines them in circular ecosystems, essentially the animals feed the plants, and the plants feed the animals.Conventional farming practices still dominate India’s agricultural sector leading to improper irrigation and stressed land and water resources.
What is the scope by using this method?
In regenerative practice, we will be able to save about 10% to 20% on the cultivation costs. From an income perspective the immediate impact is observed in the farmer crop based net income, ranging from 10%-30%. This is incurred due to the reduced input cost and additional revenue opportunities from crop diversification. Due to incorporation of poultry and cattle, there are additional revenue opportunities like eggs, meat and milk. It is not long until the farmers understand the value of enriching soil.The result is not immediate, it takes at least two-three crop cycles for the farmers to see the difference. Steady increase in soil health and organic matter can enable opportunities for farmers to shift from cereal crops into high value crops. The qualitative impact of the shift, in the long run, reduces agricultural emissions, and resilience of farmers and the business to climate change impact.