A green lung for Indian agriculture

Climate change, health concerns and farmers’ despair due to rising costs and dropping profits have prompted India to reconsider the agriculture’s path. The National Mission of Sustainable Agriculture is focusing on designing new outlooks for Indian agriculture.

One of the most creative initiatives is the program named Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA), an alternative to the conventional input-intensive agriculture model. It promotes the use of locally available, organic external inputs and traditional organic farming methods (such as poly-cropping and intense rice-growing systems). The program is headed and monitored by self-help groups of rural women supported by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), a state-government support structure aided by the World Bank.

This initiative builds on the key drivers of a sustainable agriculture. It empowers local population groups and resorts to organic farming that is both climate and health friendly. The outcome of the schemes is that, in the case of cotton for example, a CMSA farmer saves more than Rs 12,500 per year just by not using pesticides and without affecting crop productivity.

If you know of other interesting initiatives in the domain of sustainable agriculture, please share with us!