Is Indian Agriculture Showing The World The Way To Fight Climate Change Via Sustainable Agriculture? I Now Prefer Regenerative!

India surprised the whole world during the 26th Conference of the Parties (CoP26) 31 October-12 November 2021 at Glasgow, Scotland, when it presented its Pledge of Panchamrit (Five-Fold Strategy) to fight climate change – implying that India knew better than any country how to cope with this global challenge. Let’s investigate!

In “Indian Agriculture: The Route Post-CoP26” (15 Jan 2022, ICRISAT.org), Arabinda K Padhee & Anthony Whitbread enumerate & explain the Indian five-fold strategy thus:

1. Diversification
2. Agro-Ecological Approaches
3. Water-Use Efficiency
4. Renewable Energy Usage
5. Digital Agriculture.

Diversification

The authors point out “potential benefits of crop diversification” based on research, including sorghum and millet, especially where rice yields are low: increase in food values and reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Agroforestry… brings synergies between trees and crops or forages (such as trees on field bunds, inline agroforestry and high-density fruit orchards) to help diversify existing farming systems and achieve medium- to long-term sustainability.

More than agroforestry, I now prescribe AgriForestry, my regenerative science marriage of food & wood crops mixed in wide expansesto defeat or at least withstand ferocious winds brought by storms. We must graduate from Sustainable to Regenerative. (For more on AgriForestry, see my essay, “Transforming Ifugao Rice Terraces Into Food & Wood Wonders – I Wonder How?” 17 Jan 2022, Primate Change, Blogspot.com.)

Agro-Ecological Approaches

Greenhouse gas emissions from chemical agriculture are avoided when Natural Farming practices are employed, which “bring synergy towards ecosystem services and biodiversity.” The authors say pesticides and fertilizers pollute the environment; yes, in AgriForestry, “It’s out with those devils!”

Water-Use Efficiency

India is promoting micro-irrigation practices (sprinkler and drip) with government assistance, even as Indian agriculture uses about 80% of total freshwater resources. India hopes such will cover large crop areas for more food produced even as there are more savings. Good!

Renewable Energy Usage

“India’s ambitious renewable energy target (500 GW by 2030) must include the potential agriculture sector upfront.” So there is solar-powered irrigation. So far, the highly subsidized or free electricity for irrigation has not been taken advantage of by Indian farmers. (I note that the authors do not explain why.)

Digital Agriculture  

The authors say, “Increasing use of mobile telephones (and smartphones) in rural India offers a unique opportunity to leverage information symmetry and connectivity to the advantage of farmers.” Again, they do notdiscuss further, so I take this as only pointing out the potential. The digital universe and data ecosystems “carry the potential to raise farm productivity and income by supporting the delivery of information and services, market integration and management of risks, mainly arising from weather extremes.” I note that they do not mention stored digital knowledge in agriculture, only digital marketing of farm produce.

My main criticism covering the whole Indian Panchamrit is that it wholly depends on Sustainable Agriculture – GHGs are still there. I insist it should be Regenerative Agriculture, which I have further advanced to Regenerative AgriForestry – to produce an abundance of food and absence of GHGs!@517

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