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1. Background Andhra Pradesh is a major agriculture hub in India. Agriculture being one of the key economic sectors, it plays an important role in the livelihoods of people by employing nearly 62% of population in agriculture and allied activities. Agriculture contributes to 28% of state GSDP. Andhra Pradesh is also known as Rice Bowl of India and has a diversified cropping system – covering 80 lakh hectares of land in cropped area. Andhra Pradesh is India’s largest producer of fruits, eggs and aquaculture products. About 14 lakh hectares are under Horticulture. The main challenges in Agriculture and Food sector can be described as follows:

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Farmer Distress Farmers are in deep distress. The conventional agriculture practice induces the farmer to rely heavily on chemical fertilizers and pesticides leading to high cost of cultivation. Prolonged dry spells and drying of borewells coupled with extreme droughts are leading to crop failures. Unseasonal rains and more frequent cyclones are another cause of concern. There are serious problems associated with the livelihoods of landless agriculture workers and tenants. All these factors are leading to distress migration to urban areas. On top of these, market uncertainties are adding to the farmers problems and pushing them into perpetual cycle of debt.

Consumer food crisis By 2050, the global population is expected to reach 9.5 billion. Our food supplies are likely to be under far greater stress. Adding to this, the availability of arable land is shrinking rapidly due to urbanization, soil degradation and climate change. As a result, large populations may face food scarcity. The existing practices of chemical agriculture is leaving chemical residues in the food and is reducing nutrient value thereby creating health hazards.

Soil degradation The use of chemicals in agriculture reduces life in the soil and essentially puts plant health at risk. The chemical agriculture practices also contaminate groundwater and other water-dependent ecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss in the farmland. Prevailing agricultural practices such as mono-cropping decrease soil moisture content, causing tremendous stress on water resources. Soil degradation and loss of top soil is resulting in weaker plants. Soils are losing water holding capacity due to reduced tree cover.

Global warming Temperature analysis conducted between 1900 to 2018 by Berkeley Earth revealed that Temperature increases are happening at an alarming rate around the world. If this trend continues, the world will soon become warmer by 20C.

Climate Injustice Global warming has put children, women and landless agriculture works as most vulnerable communities. These sections of the society are least responsible for climate crisis; however, they are the most affected, suffer the most and face gravest consequences of climate change.

2. Zero-Budget Natural Farming – A Transformational Solution ZBNF is all about farming in harmony with nature, and firmly believes that mother nature has solution to all kinds of human-induced problems in agriculture and food sector. As an alternative to the current agriculture practices, Zero-Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) has emerged as a transformational technology. ZBNF safeguards our collective future by:

1. Reducing cost of cultivation and risks and increasing yields thereby generating regular

income and make agriculture more climate resilient. 2. Producing more food, safe and nutritious food that is free of chemicals 3. Reducing the migration of youth from villages and creates reverse migration to villages

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4. Enhancing soil health, water conservation, regenerating coastal ecosystems and biodiversity

ZBNF incorporates best practices from various agroecology practices for climate change adaptation. To name a few, Regenerative Agriculture, Conservation Agriculture, Silvopasture, Tree intercropping, Multi-strata Agroforestry, Farmland restoration, SRI, Nutrient Management and Farmland Irrigation. ZBNF practices are built on four core principles, which are called the four wheels of ZBNF:

Along with adhering to zero-chemical usage, ZBNF follows certain other important principles: - Use of ‘indigenous’ cow – for cow-dung and urine. According to Sh. Palekar, one cow is

enough for cultivation of 30 acres – since cow dung is not a bio fertilizer. It is used as an inoculum.

- Botanical extracts prepared locally using local inputs such as neem leaves for pest management

- Indigenous seeds are critical for Z.B.N.F - Minimal tillage is an important practice in ZBNF to avoid damaging the soil structure. - All inputs to be made within the village

The ingredients used in preparing the inputs are locally available and locally prepared by farmers. They include – cow dung, cow urine, jaggery, uncontaminated soil, pulse flour, lime and water. Additionally, botanical extracts (from neem and other leaves, ginger, garlic, chilli, curd etc) are used to prepare decoctions to prevent any pests during the cultivation. All these practices put together increases the humus content in the soil that fuels the vast number of organisms above and below the soil. This entire soil food web is what enhances the agriculture productivity, biodiversity, carbon sequestration and water availability. 3. APZBNF Model: Theory of Change Zero-Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), as a regenerative agriculture, is redefining the food and agriculture systems in Andhra Pradesh and addressing the core reasons of farmers’ distress

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which is characterized by high-cost chemical farming that has resulted in losses and high debts for farmers, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity. While ZBNF is a remarkable technology with a potential to address farmer distress, taking it to farmers and ensuring that farmers adopt this technology is the most challenging task. Farmers face barriers in adopting ZBNF if it is implemented on a piecemeal basis. Lack of knowledge, awareness and handholding support are key barriers to adoption. But more important are the obstacles from the entire ecosystem – right from family members, to neighbors, to other farmers in the village, and the village elders, sarpanches. The mainstream system of agriculture research, agriculture scientists, agriculture extension officers, fertilizer and pesticide dealers – all have been promoting chemical farming for over 30-50 years. It is on account of these obstacles that the adoption of an alternative agriculture paradigm has been so slow in the world. Till date there are only 0.5% certified organic farmers in the World. Addressing these issues calls for a paradigm shift wherein a complete transformation of a village should be focused while trying to convert a single farmer. In this context, Rythu Sadhikara Samstha under the aegis of Department of Agriculture have been firmly believing in three important theories of change in implementing ZBNF programme: 1. transformation should

happen in a democratic way wherein women SHGs and farmer institutions are involved in programme planning, implementation and monitoring;

2. Knowledge dissemination and handholding support is constantly provided through farmer-driven extension architecture led by Community Resource Persons;

3. Saturation of entire village, cluster, Mandal and the state (in that order) involves converting all villages, all farmers, all farms and all practices leading to a total transformation.

Essentially, these key pillars define the contours of the strategy, activities and the associated costs of implementation of APZBNF model. 4. Implementation Plan of APZBNF Model 1. Our implementation plan calls for a 5 -7-year support to the Gram Panchayat. The average

number of farm families is estimated to be 465 of which the programme plans to cover 400 farm families (around 85%).

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2. Each farmer requires about 3-5 years of handholding support until she/he transits to natural farming and converts her/his entire holding to natural farming.

3. To provide this support, RySS has positioned a spearhead team of 2-3 master farmers, called Community Resource Persons (CRPs) at the Cluster level (a cluster is a group of 5 GPs).

4. CRPs are themselves best practicing farmers. The CRPs stay in the allotted villages and motivate and support farm households in the village to adopt ZBNF and provide them with handholding support to ensure that the transition is smooth.

5. At the end of 2-3 years, a new pool of master farmers from within these GPs is identified and these internal best practitioners are nurtured to become farmer trainers. Creation and positioning of this human resource are critical for sustaining and expanding this process. Once the internal best practitioners are positioned, the intensity of support to the new farmers increases. A fully trained internal best practitioner is called internal community resource person (iCRP). The programme makes one iCRP available for every 100 farmers.

6. While CRPs and iCRPs focus on transfer of technology, there is another important aspect of mobilizing farmers together, making farming plans and monitoring those plans. This is carried out by the women Self-help Groups and their Village Organizations (VOs). The role of women is at the front end of the programme leading to transformation of the entire community in the village. Their strengths are into social mobilization, collective action, community learning and community marketing which are of great use for ZBNF implementation.

5. Human Capital in a ZBNF Cluster As described above, a ‘ZBNF Cluster’ would be a cluster of five geographically contiguous Gram Panchayats comprising of about 2,000 farm families. Internal CRPs, as explained above, are positioned in a GP and are called as Level 3 CRPs. CRPs positioned at Cluster level are called Level 1 CRPs. Besides Core ZBNF function, we also require CRPs specialized in Institution Building (IB) and Digital Literacy (for data collection, data entry and data analytics) – both at the cluster level and at the GP level. CRPs are also required in the certain thematic areas such as Marketing, Health and Nutrition, Energy, Water etc.

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A typical cluster will have the following human capital:

Human Capital # per Cluster

Community-Level

ZBNF CRP/Mandal Anchor Level 1 1

IB CRP Level 1 1

Digital CRP Level 1 1

Thematic CRPs Level 1 2

Internal CRP (ZBNF) Level 3 20

Internal CRP (IB + Digital) Level 3 10

Internal CRP (thematic) Level 3 20

Professional-Level

Natural Farming Fellows including Health & Nutrition Fellows 1

Natural Farming Interns/Apprentices 2

Total 58

6. An Update of AP ZBNF Programme Outreach and Coverage 1. APZBNF programme has been initiated in June 2015 by Department of Agriculture and the

field level implementation has commenced from Kharif 2016 on a pilot-basis in 704 villages with funding from GoI and GoAP through Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY).

2. From 2016 onwards, Department of Agriculture has mandated Rythu Sadhikara Samstha to spearhead the implementation of ZBNF programme in Andhra Pradesh.

3. The programme has been extended to additional 268 villages in Kharif 2017 with funding support from GoI and GoAP through Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).

4. By 2018, the programme has reached 3,015 villages reaching out to 5,23,000 farmers across 13 districts of the state making it one of the largest agroecology programmes in the world.

Farmer Enrolment over the years from 2016-17 till date

2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20

Farmers 40,656 1,63,000 5,23,000 5,80,000

Gram Panchayats 704 972 3,011 3,067

Summary of Farmers by Social Category

Category Percentage

Scheduled Caste 17%

Scheduled Tribe 11%

Backward Class 46%

Other Category 24%

Minority 2%

Total farmers reached till date

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Funds for Programme Implementation and Technical Assistance The programme has been receiving funds from RKVY and PKVY since 2015-16 through Department of Agriculture. From 2017 onwards, RySS has been receiving the funds directly and is implementing the programme. Following table summarizes the funds received from 2015-16 to 2018-19 (in USD in Millions):

Year RKVY PKVY Total

2015-16 340.4 183.4 523.8

2016-17 459.1 133.0 592.1

2017-18 383.8 109.3 493.1

2018-19 630.0 903.2 1,533.2

Total 1,813.3 1,328.9 3,142.2

7. Key Results Third-party Crop Cutting Experiments on ZBNF and Non-ZBNF farms were conducted by Centre for Economics and Social Studies (CESS). The summary of results were as follows:

1. Cost of cultivation has shown significant differences with ZBNF costs being lower than non-

ZBNF costs across all crops;

2. Yield differences are not significant between ZBNF and Non-ZBNF farms;

3. Significant increase in net income for ZBNF farmers as a result of reduction in cost of

cultivation; and

4. ZBNF farms reported better soil health, crop health, resilience, economic empowerment of

farmers and dignity of labor.

The report also mentioned that ZBNF has higher potential for expansion of extension services by way of increasing CRPs at the village level that may help the farmers in acquiring skills, addressing the market related issues and achieving the full potential of ZBNF. 8. Unique Features of APZBNF 8.1 Community Resource Persons The major innovation in the programme and its strength is the farmer-to-farmer knowledge dissemination. The trainers are the best practicing ZBNF farmers, called Community Resource Persons (CRPs). They are highly motivated and strongly committed to ZBNF as their own lives have been transformed by implementation of ZBNF in their own fields. The exponential growth of the programme is largely attributed to highly motivated and strongly committed 5,600 CRPs who are taking this programme to the last mile.

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8.2 Role of Women Women are at the front end of the programme leading to the entire community’s transformation in the village. Currently, 161,296 women SHGs and their 7,106 federations at village level (Village Organizations) are leading the programme implementation, developing farming plans, collectively preparing inputs, learning from peers, monitoring and verifying farmers and marketing the produce.

8.3 Inspirational Trainings The programme has been organizing mega training events delivered by Padma Shri Dr Subash Palekar. So far, four mega training events (Tirupati, Kakinada, Guntur (Twice)) have been organized in Andhra Pradesh to about 27,000 best-practicing farmers directly whiles several thousands of farmers also watched electronically. These trainings add a huge impact on farmers in building their motivation and commitment levels to improve their own farming methods and also to take this programme to other farmers. 8.4 Saturation Approach and Farmer’s Graduation The vision of the government is to scale up ZBNF to all 6 Million farmers and entire 8 Million hectares by 2024. It takes three years to reach to every farmer in a GP. A farmer, after one year of introductory efforts, will take 3 more years to convert his/her entire holding and become a seed-to-seed ZBNF farmer. Out of these, 86% farmers become seed-to-seed which takes five years. The State Govt’s approach is to saturate each village in 3 years from the year of entry into that village. The plan is to reach more than 80% (400 farmers) of the village by year 3. Each farmer takes 3 years to cover entire holding. Thus in 5 years, the village becomes a ‘bio-village’.

Whole Village Approach A typical farmer’s adoption pattern

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

25% 60% > 80% 1/4th ½ Full area

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8.5 Emphasis on Mainstreaming Poorest of the Poor Landless poor who are dependent on agriculture and allied activities are the most vulnerable sections of the society. Problems of tenancy and employability are severe. They are also one of the subjects of Climate Injustice. Special emphasis to mainstream livelihoods of the Poorest of the Poor is therefore essential. The term Poorest of the Poor refers to those who are landless agriculture labors, tenant farmers, SC/ST farmers with less than 2 acres of land. APZBNF programme has been promoting the following:

1. ZBNF Kitchen Gardens for securing essential food and nutrition 2. Land Lease facilitation through CRPs and SHGs 3. Development of assigned lands through ZBNF practices 4. ZBNF entrepreneurship as a source of livelihood – this includes ZBNF shops, seed

supply, input preparation/procurement services 5. Off-farm livelihoods such as backyard poultry, ZBNF paddy-fish farm ponds.

Currently, the programme is working with 0.15 Million of Poorest of the Poor with above interventions. 9. Cost of Implementation Funds required to convert a farmer is USD 348 spread over a period of 5-6 years. Majority of the funds (nearly 73%) are spent in the Capacity Building of farmers and champion farmers. Nearly 17% % is spent on institution building through women self-help groups and helping them build their own farmers’ institutions for promoting ZBNF, input preparation, marketing and other value addition. Following is the cost structure of the programme:

# Component Cost per farmer ($) Percentage

1 ZBNF Capacity Building 255 73.40%

2 Support to Community Institutions 58 16.60%

3 PGS Certification, Quality Assurance, Tracking and Monitoring

28 8.00%

4 Technical Support and Overall Programme Management

7 2.00%

Total 348

10. Benefits ZBNF provides substantial economic benefits to farmers. Most important of them are:

• Reduced Cost

• Interest Savings

• Higher Yields

• Intercrop Value

• Fairer Returns

Further, Health benefits and ecological benefits are immense and are additional. From our internal analysis, a farmer typically receives the following benefits from Year 1 to Year 5, and tends to grow incrementally and perpetually

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Estimated Savings in ZBNF for Farmer (in USD)

Year 1 2 3 4 5

Reduced Cost of Cultivation 188 207 226 254 282

Interest Savings 23 25 27 30 34

Higher Yield 70 77 84 91 97

Increase in Income through Intercrops 267 201 201 217 234

Fairer Returns 0 42 47 53 59

Total Benefits per farmer 447 551 584 645 707

An analysis was carried out to estimate Cost-Benefit ratio in typical GP comprising of 400 farmers using an estimated 7% discount rate. A summary of the same is presented below:

Summary of Benefit Cost Ratio

Benefit per farmer (in USD) 4,510

Cost per farmer spent by RySS (in USD) 348

BC Ratio 13 times

Other eco system benefits In addition to economic benefits, ZBNF provides several benefits to the eco system:

1. Food, Nutrition and Health Security for farmers and consumers

2. Increase in Employment

3. Improved Soil Health and Water Security

4. Regeneration of Coastal Ecosystem

5. Conservation and enhancement of Biodiversity

6. Climate resilience and tackling problems of global warming

11. Drought Proofing Strategy – A breakthrough in APZBNF Over the past one decade, drought has become a common phenomenon. Prolonged dry spells have been witnessed in many parts where programme is being implemented. Rainfall as minimum as 5 days and dry spell of 306 days have occurred in most parts in Anantapur district. In order to address this issue, APZBNF has embarked on a plan to cover the agriculture land for 365 days in a year with a green cover. This programme began in May 2018 with experiments conducted by young agricultural graduates inducted as Natural Farming Fellows (NFFs). The experiment was conducted by 11 NFFs who started pre-monsoon sowings and have found encouraging outcomes. This has resulted in 42 NFFs and iCRPs (Internal Community Resource Persons) to take up dry-sowing in December 2018. Increase in soil porosity enabling plants to survive droughts, by using the water vapour as a means of irrigation was an observation in these experiments. In 2019-20, this has been taken up by 12,472 farmers who have already implemented 365 Day Green Cover in 2,930 acres. The results have been quite encouraging. A strategy has evolved with this breakthrough:

1. Implementing 365 Day pre-monsoon dry sowing by every farmer as a standard model 2. Implementing dry sowing plus RFSA models 3. Implementing rainfed five-layer models

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These strategies are now paving way to creating employment opportunities for youth in the villages.

12. Urgency behind rapid scaling up of ZBNF Current agricultural practices are contributing to 24% of Green House Gases. It is observed that, since industrial era temperatures of the planet are being increased year by year. There will be no country spared from global warming by 2090. As per IPCC 1.5 special report in October 2018, if we do not manage this climate crisis, no human being escapes from the disaster. Before industrial revolution, CO2 levels were 280 ppm. Steadily, the levels kept increasing year-after-year and reached up to 415 ppm way beyond the safe zone of 350 ppm. As per the resolution of the COP-21 (Conference of Parties) held in Paris, all countries should put their efforts for zero net emissions of the Green House Gases, so that we can limit the the increase in atmospheric temperature by 2oC. COP-24 held in Poland endorsed the IPCC report and warned the countries that by next 10-15 years they should act against GHG emissions. Carbon levels in most agricultural soils have declined dramatically over last century. This has severely affected the productivity, soil structure, resilience against climate shocks and ability to retain and harvest water. It is only through appropriate land management that we can build the soil carbon levels. Z.B.N.F is an excellent option for re building soil carbon.

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13. National and Global Recognition for APZBNF 1. Paris Peace Forum: AP ZBNF has been selected as one of the top 10 projects for scaling

up support 2. World Future Council selected AP ZBNF as one of the top 30 most promising policies

in agroecology 3. Global Alliance for the Future of Food has selected AP ZBNF as one of the 21 ‘Beacons

of Hope’ 4. NITI Aayog, Govt of India has commended the Government of Andhra Pradesh’s ZBNF

strategy 5. Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan States have visited AP and are interested to

adopt APZBNF model 6. Indonesian Ministerial delegation has visited Andhra Pradesh to learn about ZBNF 7. United Nations Climate Change Summit 2019: Andhra Pradesh ZBNF Model is being

showcased 8. Global Environment Facility (international body governed by 183 member-countries)

has approved the proposal submitted by UN Environment India to finance the scaling up of ZBNF by AP Govt.

9. UN Agencies (WFP, UNEP, CBD, WHO, IFAD, FAO, UNDEP) jointly approved the Scaling up Agroecology Initiative work plan for 2019-2020. Mexico, Senegal and India (specifically the region of Andhra Pradesh) selected for the first phase of implementation.

10. Union Ministry of Agriculture has commended the APZBNF. The Ministry wishes to designate Govt of A.P as a resource state for supporting other states in this transition.