External Reports

Creating Sustainable Value for Smallholders in India and Himalayan Ecosystems
TRAVEL WORKSHOP TO THE AREAS OF CRZBNF IN AP

EXTERNAL REPORTS

Gram-disha-trust-report-of-travel-workshop-on-ap-crzbnf

BACKGROUND

The Government of Andhra Pradesh (AP) is implementing a large scale programme with the aim of having 60 lakh farmers practising natural farming. This programme is called Climate Resilient Zero Budget Natural Farming (CRZBNF). A programme of this scale has, naturally, attracted widespread attention and there have also been controversies and criticisms of it.


In this context, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) engaged in this programme organised a travel workshop for “mutual learning and long term engagement”. They invited about 25 “NGOs, academicians, practitioners, researchers and journalists from across the country to come and see the programme on the ground” and provide suggestions for further strengthening the programme. The host CSOs were Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN) and Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre.


Nachiket Udupa, who is associated with the Gram Disha Trust (GDT), attended this workshop on behalf of GDT. Since there has been a high level of curiosity within civil society about this programme, this report has been prepared by Mr. Udupa for GDT in order to add to the public discourse and debate with the hope of creating more clarity around some of the contentious issues surrounding the programme. The views presented in this report are solely the author’s and do not represent the views of any of the organisations that he is associated with.


It is acknowledged that there is most likely be an inherent bias amongst the organisers that the travel workshop will be organised only in areas where the programme is being implemented well and that one will probably not get to visit areas where it is weak. The spirit behind the visit of the author was not so much to evaluate how strong the implementation of the programme is but rather to gauge the broad direction, philosophy and vision behind the programme. In other words, the aim was to evaluate not so much what has been achieved but to understand what they hope to achieve.

Gram Disha Trust
Specific questions

Some of the specific questions that the author had were the following:

  • Does CRZBNF promote only ZBNF or are other agroecological approaches also being promoted?
  • How is the marketing of the produce being done? Are the farmers being certified as organic? Are FSSAI norms being complied with?
  • Is there any evidence of the ‘corporate capture’ of the programme, especially on the marketing side of the produce, once it is harvested? Does such evidence exist on the input side as well?
  • How are seeds managed in the programme? Are GM seeds permitted or not?
  • How central are cows to this method of farming? Are other animals allowed?
  • How strong is the extension work being done in the programme? How are the farmer field schools (FFS) functioning?
Specific questions
What are the efforts being done to study the effectiveness of the programme? What are the preliminary results looking like? Some specific questions in this regard were: - Has this method brought down the farmers’ cost of cultivation? - What is the impact on the yield? - Has it helped fetch better prices? - Has it improved farmer incomes? - What is the long term vision of Rytu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS, a company for farmers empowerment set up by the government of AP), the nodal body for this programme in the state? The AP government’s agriculture department and extension team promotes conventional agriculture. At the same time there is an extension structure being put in place by this programme that is promoting ZBNF. What is the plan to reconcile these conflicting structures?
The schedule for the three days of the workshop was the following:

SCHEDULE

The Workshop

  • Day 1:
    • Presentations by officials and CSO representatives about CRZBNF and their experiences with the programme
    • Mapping of expectations and discussions
    • Informal conversations to get to know one another at an individual level and understand the background, context and motivation of each participant
  • Day 2: Field visits in teams to different kinds of areas as shown ​here​.
  • Day 3:
    • Sharing of observations and suggestions for improvement by the participants
    • Views shared by T. Vijay Kumar, I.A.S (retired) and Advisor to GoAP for Agriculture & Cooperation and Co-Vice Chairman, RySS

Day -01

After the customary welcome and introduction of all participants in the workshop, the organisers asked the participants to share their expectations from the workshop. This was followed by presentations by representatives of the host CSOs and officials about CRZBNF and their experiences with the programme. The link to the presentations is appended at the end of the document.

It was mentioned that Anantapur was selected for the travel workshop in order to demonstrate that the programme can be effective in drought prone regions. Similar workshops are also being planned in the Visakhapatnam region to show how the programme works in the northern coastal part of AP which is primarily a tribal area and also in the Vijayawada region to expose how the programme works in areas where commercial crops are being cultivated. Workshops are also being planned for agricultural scientists and media persons.

During the presentations, some notable things were mentioned:

Poitns No. - 01-04
- CSA is an implementing partner for the CRZBNF programme in five districts of Andhra Pradesh.

- Of the total budget for CRZBNF, about 16% is spent on ‘institutions’, 74% on extension activities and about 10% on management. (The figures mentioned in the ​presentation are: ‘​CB – 73%; Institutions – 17%; Tracking – 8%; Management – 2% ​ ’).

-About 5% of the farmers in the state are a part of the programme and, of this 5%, two-thirds are “fully ZBNF” farmers.

-Funding for the programme is coming from Government of India’s Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) schemes.

Poitns No. - 05-06
-CRZBNF has several international partners/collaborators, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

-IDH​, one such international partner, has mooted certifying entire areas (such as a village, for example) as opposed to certifying individual farmers. However, as of now, RySS has partnered with Regional Councils (RCs) under Participatory Guarantee System of India (PGS-India) to certify farmers in order to meet PKVY requirements. Mindtree and​ Producers Market are helping with marketing for commodities which have a “long value chain”. These long value chains are being developed for specific non-food grain commodities, like cashew and chilli, which are being produced in excess and surpluses are available for distant markets.
Poitns No. - 07-10
-Mindtree is helping create an online portal which is envisioned as a digital commons platform for various kinds of stakeholders including ones who want to procure from farmers.

-In the future, farmer producer organisations (FPOs) and not RySS will implement this programme.

-Lessons learned on fall armyworm management through this programme have been submitted to research institutions run by the government.

-All the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) in India (about 650 of them) have been asked to convert one village each into a ZBNF village.

Poitns No. - 11
- Among the top challenges in implementation of the CRZBNF programme are:

1: Getting farmers to stop using synthetic chemicals in agriculture. Hence, the programme is taking a “de-addiction approach”.

2: The government is not speaking in a single voice, i.e., promoting agro-ecological agriculture through programmes like CRZBNF while, at the same time, also recommending synthetic chemical inputs through the government department agriculture extension system.

3: ZBNF, which is not subsidised, is compared with conventional agriculture, which is subsidised, without taking into consideration the cost of the subsidies.

Day -02

The whole of the second day comprised of a field visit. The group that the author of this report was a part of left around 6:45 am and got back only around 8:00 pm. Photographs of the field visit may be accessed ​here​.

The main highlights of the field visit on the second day are as follows:

  • The first visit was to the farm of ​Kishore Chandra Reddy (+91 94900 28642). He was an English speaking farmer who did agriculture on 26 acres of land and has been practising ZBNF since 2015. He, however, does not own any cattle and said that he also practises all other forms of organic agriculture as well. The area he farmed has been facing a severe drought as a result of which he currently has no net income from agriculture. He said that he also felt that climate change was adversely affecting his agriculture. His farm also suffered from a high level of salinity in the water available for irrigation. The ​standing crop on his farm was finger millet, which he currently sells to Earth 360.
  • Next we visited a ​school where other farmers had also come and we had a discussion with farmers as well as other people involved in field level implementation.
Poitns No. - 03-05
- Dastagiri was a farmer who grew paddy and had a ​kitchen garden​. He was also a labourer. He has been practising ZBNF for four years and said that ZBNF has reduced his cost of cultivation and that others have converted to ZBNF after seeing him practise it.

-Srinivas was another farmer who participated in the discussion in the school. He owned a total of six acres of land, practising ZBNF on one acre. On the remaining five acres, farming using exclusively oil-based inputs, which is a local practice. In ‘oil culture farming’, all nutrition and pest control is done only by using the oils of karanj, groundnut, neem and sesame. Srinivas also a kitchen garden.

-Venkateshwarulu, another ZBNF farmer, also has six acres of land and uses ​waste decomposer as one of his inputs.
Poitns No. - 06-08
-Various credit groups, like self-help groups (SHGs), help farmers buy cattle.

-An FPO with 2000 members was being planned in the location by CSA. A farmers market was also being planned in Kadapa, the district headquarters of the village we were visiting. CSA is also planning an ‘eco-label’ which takes into consideration not just chemical usage but also water and energy consumption as well as food miles as compared to conventionally grown produce.

-In each ‘cluster’ there are six farmer field schools (FFS) held per fortnight, i.e. three per week each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. There is one FFS per village over two weeks and six villages per cluster. FFS are generally held from 6:00 am to 10:00 am. Later, in the night when the FFS is held in the day, there are video screenings in the village using pico projectors. These videos are usually recorded by the farmers themselves and are said to be available on krishi.tv​. In the areas where CSA is involved in implementation, each Community Resource Person (CRP) adopts five families.
Poitns No. - 09-10
-Another farmer, Rosaiah, has been practising ZBNF for two years on a two acre plot. His is one of the ​plots on which ZBNF experiments are being conducted. He said that his expenses have come down from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 12,000 and yield has reduced by four bags (i.e., 300 kgs). His crop annual crop rotation cycle was usually korra (brown top millet) as the summer crop followed by paddy in kharif and sesame in the rabi season.

-A local practice during paddy transplanting is to cut the tips of the leaves because the eggs of the pests are supposedly found on the leaf tips.The group the author was a part of was intentionally taken to an area where paddy is grown to demonstrate that ZBNF is possible in flood irrigation and high input contexts as well.
Poitns No. - 11
-In Proddatur mandal, Kadapa district, which the author’s group was visiting, CSA is a resource NGO as well as a field NGO. Resource NGOs provide technical inputs and support for implementation of CRZBNF whereas field NGOs are the ones that drive the actual implementation in the field.

-Dry sowing was being experimented with.

-Across various plots, it could be perceived that dragon flies were hovering around the ZBNF plots but not over the neighbouring plots where ZBNF was not being practised.

Day -03

The last day of the workshop was for participants to share their findings, both what they appreciated as well as perceived shortcomings. Initially the same groups as those in which people went to the field the earlier day discussed and presented their learnings from the field. Later, mixed groups were formed where possible improvements were brainstormed and shared. Mr. T. Vijay Kumar, Co-Vice Chairperson, RySS was present during this session and later addressed the gathering. The points from the various presentations that particularly caught the author’s attention are mentioned below.

MARKETING


It was felt by one participant that ZBNF farmers knew that they were being certified but didn’t really understand what Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) and Internal Control System (ICS) were. Similarly, another participant felt that farmers knew that they were a part of SHGs and FPOs but did not understand what role SHGs and FPOs play. One of the questions that arose from the field visit was to understand, going forward, what the strategy of CRZBNF was on certification, marketing and pricing. Different groups that went to the field felt that although the programme had created a departure from the conventional production methods, marketing was still being done using conventional routes. Many groups felt a strong need for an institutional approach to marketing. They also observed that farmers were still making more money despite using conventional marketing routes because input costs had reduced. However, it was also reported that, despite a lack of separate markets, since ZBNF produce is of high quality, it got sold before the conventional produce. ZBNF farmers involved in floriculture also reported higher shelf life of their produce.

ROLE OF SUPPORT ORGANISATIONS AND PERSONS​:

A participant said that the village they had visited had a strong presence of Accion Fraterna, one of the CSOs involved in organising this workshop, as well as a history of having used Non Pesticide Management (NPM) techniques. This begged the question as to what the situation would be in villages where there is no such CSO or a history of NPM. Others wanted to know the role that panchayats are playing in this programme and there was a suggestion to localise marketing through panchayats. A need to resolve the dichotomy with the government agriculture department, which was promoting synthetic chemical inputs contrary to the recommendations of CRZBNF, was felt. Another wondered about the sustainability of the CRP based model since the CRPs are not being paid.

 

There were also suggestions to help farmers get financial support, in the form of loans, through this programme and to involve the revenue department to help tenant farmers as a part of this programme.

INPUTS


Another very important observation by a participant was that some farmers were buying inputs. Mulch sold for about Rs. 5 – 6 per kilogram, which farmers found very expensive. As a result, farmers who needed to buy mulch were not doing mulching at all. Cost of other inputs were found to be as follows: cow urine @ Rs. 10 / litre; jeevamrut @ Rs. 5 / litre and ghan-jeevamrut @ Rs. 20 per kg. There is a very real danger that such purchase of inputs could lead to higher costs of cultivation defeating one of the main purposes of undertaking ZBNF agriculture in the first place. One must remain vigilant that high external synthetic chemical input agriculture does not get replaced by high cost albeit locally produced organic inputs. While the need to reduce drudgery and the convenience of buying readymade inputs are to be duly acknowledged, farmers must also be cautioned against falling back into remedies that increase their cost of cultivation even if the inputs being purchased are organic and locally produced.

TECHNIQUES AND SCIENCE​

ZBNF techniques were seen being used to grow high value crops such as areca nut and betel nut. Those undertaking sericulture reported an increase in the sericulture area and production due to lower pesticide usage.


One of the scientists attending remarked that he found the results of ZBNF techniques quite magical. It appeared he was pleasantly surprised but unable to explain what he saw. He also requested greater interaction with researchers, especially from agriculture universities in Andhra Pradesh, in order to understand the underlying science better and to refine the practices being followed. There was also a request to share the on-going research being undertaken so that there is no duplication of efforts and to identify gaps in the current research when trying to figure out what more needs to be understood. Further, if the administrative data being generated through this programme could be shared, it could help researchers validate findings and better design policy recommendations. There was a suggestion to also understand from dropouts why they are leaving ZBNF practices so that improvements can be made to the programme.


Another researcher felt that the generalising of the results was questionable since their group had also come across many farmers for whom there was no germination of the crop. The reason that there was no germination will, however, have to be investigated in the context of the prevailing drought. Whether the observations are good or bad, proper controlled trials will be needed to attribute causes since there might be several factors at play.

FEEDBACK FROM FARMERS

It seemed to be that since the risk in adopting ZBNF is low, farmers were not averse to trying it. While some farmers acknowledged the higher component of labour in following ZBNF methods, others said that agriculture anyway is hard work and that they don’t mind the additional labour that ZBNF involves. Other unexpected feedback was that the continuous ground cover all around the year has led to a higher snake population. Farmers also said that manual deweeding was easier after adopting ZBNF since the soil is looser.

The presentations from the groups were followed by an address by Mr. T. Vijay Kumar. Some of the noteworthy points were:

Poitns No. - 01-02
-Subhash Palekar’s four wheels of ZBNF are only the starting point in this programme. The programme does not restrict itself exclusively to purely ZBNF practices. We should leave the techniques to the farmers but the practices being recommended must be backed by good science.

-There is a contradiction in what the government agriculture extension recommends and what the programme promotes. This contradiction will have to be lived with for now. Extension in this programme is done by farmer-to-farmer dissemination of information. The Natural Farming Fellows, who are young agriculture graduates doing ZBNF, act as catalysts.
Poitns No. - 03-04
-The school education department has included natural farming in its curriculum.

-Apart from the four wheels of ZBNF, the CRZBNF has the following pillars: -Technology -Government -Knowledge dissemination -SHGs, FPOs and community organisations -Science
Poitns No. - 05
-Marketing is, admittedly, a weak point and anyone is welcome to help with this aspect. There is a need for more efforts on the marketing front but produce should be first available locally. Farmers should have first right of access to their produce. Farmers in the programme have also been innovating on marketing. Marketing is primarily undertaken as follows:

1. SHGs as the first internal market -Fresh produce are sold through rythu bazaars 2. FPOs help in aggregation and logistics -Long value chains are being explored with international partners
Poitns No. - 06-07
-The FAO has appointed a high-level committee on agroecology and is bringing an Australian scientist, Dr. Walter Jehne, to study the soils. Soils in Anantapur do not have high carbon content and are mostly just sand. There is a need to add more carbon to our soils.

-The meeting then concluded with an informal vote of thanks and with a reiteration that more such workshops are being planned in various geographies (drought prone, areas with commercial agriculture, coastal and hilly terrains) as well as with different groups like media persons and scientists.

CONCLUSION

While the rest of this report above was an attempt to provide an objective summary of the events that transpired during the workshop, this last section of the report contains the authors own impressions on the CRZBNF programme. The authors own bias is that he wishes for greater adoption of all agroecological practices, including (but not exclusively) ZBNF. The author draws conclusions from this perspective.


There have been several prominent critics of this programme in the Indian civil society. Some of these critics have even approached others in civil society asking them to view the programme more critically. In light of this, it was extremely disappointing that most of these prominent critics neither came themselves to the workshop nor sent representatives. If nothing else, such an exposure would have helped make their critiques be more fact based and informed of ground realities. It was mentioned in the workshop that more such events are being planned and one sincerely hopes that civil society critics attend one of these events. The complete list of participants is appended at the end of this report. In light of the criticism of ZBNF by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), it must be noted that there were a couple of agricultural scientists among the attendees.


As mentioned earlier, the field visit was to areas where the organising CSOs are involved in the implementation of CRZBNF. Therefore, it is hard to disentangle how much of what was witnessed in the field was being practised by RySS across the state and how much of it was specifically something that was being done proactively by the implementing CSO. In the author’s view, this limits the understanding of what RySS’s exact role in the field is.

Gram Disha Trust

PRACTICES

There was plenty of evidence in the field that CRZBNF did not promote ZBNF exclusively but it was certainly the primary focus. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that the terminology of the name is unfortunate since it does reflect the diversity of practices being employed in the field. Although there was no mention of it, it may well be that the programme is renamed to reflect this in the future. It was also encouraging to see agro-ecological models being adopted by farmers in irrigated, high input intensive crops, such as paddy. The experimentation with and possible viability of dry sowing are also developments that one might want to keep an eye out for. There seemed to be absolutely no evidence on the ground of promotion of GM seeds. On the contrary, there were visible efforts to develop local seed banks.

 

IMPORTANCE OF COWS

The primacy given to cows in the ZBNF methodology, especially traditional, Indian, indegenous breeds is also a cause for concern among several civil society circles. For one, the blind recommendation of cows without considering the geography of the region is often impractical. For example, in the state of Himachal Pradesh where GDT operates, it makes little sense to promote cow-based farming in the upper mountain regions of the Himalayas. Yaks and crosses are the native breeds to this region. Then there is also the fact that the dung of other animals are quite potent too. Numerous farmers swear by the efficacy of goat dung, for instance. Even within bovine species, there is the issue of indegenous cows versus western breeds and, even, buffaloes. In the current larger socio-political climate, the issue of promotion of cows also has political implications and is seen as promotion of a certain kind of cultural and political agenda. Many citizens are concerned about this aspect of the programme too.


Towards this end, it was welcome to see that at least CRZBNF is not being dogmatic about the promotion of just certain breeds or only cows. It was good to learn that there is, in fact, experimentation and research going on to compare the effect of cow-based inputs versus inputs derived from other animals. Such a rational and scientific approach is the best way to approach the issue objectively without getting swayed by any sort of political considerations.


It is also recommended that the programme also considers how to re-integrate the shepherding community with farm steads to assist and recycle biomass in the soil. More work should be done in this social construct too since this important aspect has been alienated in the conventional agricultural domain.

VALIDATION

Mr. Vijay Kumar acknowledged the existence of two parallel institutional structures in Andhra Pradesh’s agriculture space, one being the government’s official extension machinery promoting conventional agriculture and the other being the network of CSOs and CRPs pushing ZBNF. He also said, perhaps pragmatically, that this contradiction needs to be lived with. But there was no mention of a plan to reconcile this dichotomy in the future, especially since the CRZBNF programme plans to cover the entire state. It may well be that there is a long term plan and that the concerned people felt that this was not the appropriate forum to share such information (although, being a public entity, they are obliged to share such information, if it exists). There were also some hints that, in the future, FPOs and not RySS,will be implementing the programme. It will be good if greater clarity can be provided on this and if there are some public consultations on this issue.

VISION

Mr. Vijay Kumar acknowledged the existence of two parallel institutional structures in Andhra Pradesh’s agriculture space, one being the government’s official extension machinery promoting conventional agriculture and the other being the network of CSOs and CRPs pushing ZBNF. He also said, perhaps pragmatically, that this contradiction needs to be lived with. But there was no mention of a plan to reconcile this dichotomy in the future, especially since the CRZBNF programme plans to cover the entire state. It may well be that there is a long term plan and that the concerned people felt that this was not the appropriate forum to share such information (although, being a public entity, they are obliged to share such information, if it exists). There were also some hints that, in the future, FPOs and not RySS,will be implementing the programme. It will be good if greater clarity can be provided on this and if there are some public consultations on this issue.

MARKETING

Marketing was clearly something that several groups identified as a lacuna in the programme. The CRZBNF presents an interesting proposition from a marketing point of view. Those involved in marketing organic produce are used to a paradigm where there are small pockets where agroecological practices are being adopted. Marketing in a programme such as CRZBNF, where the ambition is to cover all the farmers in a state from bottom-up, calls for a whole new imagination. Traditional approaches, such as offering certification and premium for organic farmers by selling in exclusive outlets, will fail when all farmers are practising agro-ecology. Exclusivity and differentiation will cease to matter. One would also not desire that the existing marketing mechanisms, which are not necessarily in the best interest of farmers, continue to get used.


When production methods are being rethought from scratch, one hopes that the programme will also make an effort to rethink marketing from square one. There was a mention of development of online platforms and international partners to develop “long” value chains. There have also been criticisms about involvement of international finance with an eye on sourcing produce from CRZBNF farmers on terms that are not necessarily favourable to the farmers. The author is not privy to the supposed financial arrangements and is not in a position to comment on them.


FPOs are also not necessarily mechanisms to transmit the equitable prices to farmers. Farmers who are a part of milk cooperatives, often touted as successful examples of FPOs to be emulated, are unhappy with the prices they are being paid. While it is true that prices are often determined by several factors, such as international trade policies which are not in the control of FPOs, there is also a need to assess the administrative costs of FPOs. It often happens in the microcredit sector that the traditional moneylender is replaced by a microcredit organisation but the terms are not always better. Similarly, there is a danger in the blind promotion of the FPOs because possibly the margin that was being taken by the traditional​arthiya ​ s and middlemen are now going as salaries to the staff doing management and administration of the FPOs.


The programme has its heart in the right place when it seeks to promote local markets and consumption first. Proper structures need to be put in place to promote this actively. It might be best if the programme can support the development of local, community controlled, processing and value addition centres. Operations must be decentralised to the extent possible and viable. Just like CRZBNF seeks to innovate and build on traditional production agriculture systems it should also seek to build and innovate on traditional processing, value addition and marketing systems while ensuring that they are equitable and give the farmer a fair economic deal.


In closing, this report would like to express gratitude to the organisers for bringing together such a workshop. Holding more such workshops, as is being planned, will go a long way in bringing more minds to contribute to the development of this programme.