Conservation Agriculture: The much needed discourse in water management

It becomes imperative to write a piece in the context of the World Food Prize-2020 offered to Indian American, Dr Ratan Lal. His contribution in the field of soil science research and research contribution in ending hunger for millions of farmers, should not go unnoticed from the water conservation policy discourse. The prize has come at a very crucial juncture for the world, as we are already facing consequences of climate change which will accentuate the problems of supply of water. His research work, with more than five thousand citations, revolves mostly around one critical factor of production, i.e., soil. Soil which can be our best pivot to fight against climate change crisis, be it in adaptation or mitigation. In this piece, I am trying to draw the focus on a set of principles endorsed through his research, dovetailed as "conservation agriculture" (CA). It can significantly cope groundwater crisis which is imminent to India. World Water Development Report 2020, published on 21st March 2020, has also mentioned CA as one of the measures for the adaptation and mitigation of the crisis.

Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a well-established agronomic approach which keeps the soil at its centre. It has three contexts, and site-specific, interlinked principles. First is, continuous no/minimum mechanical soil disturbance. All the agronomic operations of seeding, planting, weeding, irrigation, and harvesting are done without disturbing the soil. Second is the maintenance of a permanent soil mulch or cover. This mulch cover can be of biomass residue of previous crops or live cover crops which are left on the soil. Last and most significant is diversification in the cropping system. This diversification is not just limited to crops diversification but a system which caters to socio-economic needs of the farmers. Like for example, a farmer living near a temple has demand for flowers can also cultivate marigold. The cultivation of marigold will serve two purposes, first by acting as a catch crop to manage pests, as it attracts insects. Second, it can also generate an additional source of income of flower sale. Another example of diversification can be of raising Napier grass on the border of the main crop, which acts as a trap crop and may also add to fodder supply of a farmer. So, the diversification may serve two purposes, reducing the effect of pest and at the same time, bring an additional income to a farmer.

Why Conservation Agriculture?

CA has value for all the major problems which we are facing in the world. To name them, increasing carbon in the atmosphere accentuating global warming, acute water crisis due to groundwater depletion, stagnant farm productivity furthering to food insecurity, and bio-eutrophication of water bodies. The answer to all our problem lies just below our feet, i.e., soil. Dr Rattan, in one of his podcast interview with No-Till, told that the current policy research discourse of food, energy, and water nexus (referred to as FEW) is incomplete. According to him, the primary missing link is 'soil', so the nexus should be rather FEWS if we are serious about solving the problems which we are facing together as humanity. As per his highly cited paper (Lal, 2004), an addition of one ton of soil carbon in the soil, crop yields of wheat, maize, and cowpea increases by 20-40, 10-20, and 0.5-1, kilogram per hectare, respectively. The addition also has the potential to offset 5-15 per cent of global fossil fuel emissions by reducing 0.4- 1.2 gigatons of carbon per year. Presently 25–30% area under wheat, in rice-wheat growing areas of the Indo-Gangetic plains, is marked under CA. Conservation agriculture share in India is a mere 2.3% of the world total (FAO 2016). However, the data might not represent the actual area as not all the principles are adopted. In the subsequent cropping season of summers and Kharif, the farmers plough their land and transplant seedlings in puddled fields of rice.

CA and water conservation

With an average of 1434 metre cube per person per year, India is a "water-stressed"* country. Sixty per cent of the Indian districts either fall under category "water-scarce" or suffering poor quality of water. We know, as a fact, that the agriculture sector shares close to 90 per cent of water use in India. To reduce the share, the government is trying several things in supply and demand-side management of water. Supply-side management is mostly structure oriented to capture, store, and deliver water. It may include the construction of dams, check dams, watershed development, rainwater harvesting. As per central water commission, 68 per cent of total large dams are in Maharashtra (2354), MP (906), and Gujarat (632) (CWC, 2019), yet NITI Ayog categorize these states under 'water-stressed'. Demand-side management, on the other hand, may include institutional change and technological change. Institutional change may consist of improving the quality and quantity of power supply, altering the incentives to crops, permissions, participatory irrigation management. Some of the recent examples of government interventions are Pani Bachao Paise Kamao, Odisha Millet Mission, Mera Pani Meri Virasat in states Punjab, Odisha, and Haryana, respectively. In the technological approach, the government had launched Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchaye Yojana (PMKSY) with a layover of Rs. 50,000 crore. The scheme was launched in 2015-2020 with a mandate of "Har Khet Ko Pani" and "Per Drop More Crop", to expand the area under micro-irrigation.

What if we do both demand and supply management with one intervention. Well, you heard it as right because CA promises both. Several studies (see 3, 1, 2, ) have shown CA enhances the soil porosity, and soil structure which allows more rainwater to percolate down in deeper aquifers as compared to cultivated land. Most of the intervention of supply-side management of water which government promotes is ex-situ management of supply, i.e., away from the cropping system. CA can be seen as in-situ management of water in supply-side management. Imagine all the cultivable land turning into a catchment to capture water. Rainwater simulations and research on CA-based soil system have proved that groundwater supply can be increased with an additive advantage of reducing soil runoff. Not only that CA system can potentially downsize the demand for water in agriculture by reducing the evaporation and transpiration losses. The benefits of the system can be understood in this book "Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function A Teacher's Manual", written by Didi Pershouse. The illustrations on soil health restoration can be used by extension and agriculture development organization to promote CA principle-based system.

Conservation Agriculture and other names

Some sustainable agriculture practices in zeitgeist such as zero-budget natural farming, natural farming, Saguna rice technology, regenerative agriculture, permaculture and so forth have some principles of CA adopted and adapted. All of these though have a commonality and consensus, i.e., to focus on soil organic carbon through minimal soil disturbance, and leaving the residue back in the soil. Dr Lal calls it "law of return" which means what has been taken from the soil, must go back to the soil in terms of farm waste. Conservation Agriculture is although the most agreed upon terminology used by the scientific community and endorsed by FAO. It has all the essential principles for soil health restoration, and eventually planet health restoration. Historically seeing CA has the principles as first suggested by a Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, who mentioned natural farming in his book One Straw Revolution in 1975. He had emphasized on leaving the soil as it is and cultivating crops in the mulch or residue of the previous crops. Infatuated by the concept of natural farming, zero-budget natural farming (ZBNF) has evolved. Mr Palekar, who is emerging to be 'Indian Fukuoka', is spearheading this new Indianized phenomenon. ZBNF also have two principles, i.e., mulching and diversification, of CA as earlier discussed.

The words and semantics may vary from one place to other, but the central idea revolves around the three main agronomic principles which need to be adopted and adapted in totality. When we talk of water in agriculture, cultivation of rice cannot be spared of as it takes a huge amount of water to cultivate rice. As per FAO, 2016 data around 25-30% area in India is marked under CA. But by definition, the system cannot be called the CA system, i.e., "continuous" zero disturbance of the soil. As some of the existing rice-wheat cropping, marked as CA system, does not make it practically viable for farmers to adopt continuous zero-tillage. In every Kharif season soil is puddled/churned for rice transplanting. Unless a farmer switch to direct-seeded rice, it is hard to say so. The success of planting rice, without puddling and "continuous" zero-tillage, is done in the SRT method of rice cultivation in Raigad district, by an innovative farmer, Mr Chandrashekhar Bhadsavle. A pinch of salt in the SRT system is high-dependency on broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate. The role of the herbicide in cancer (see Cressey, 2015) and autism (see Beecham and Seneff, 2016) has been a matter of contention, and the government is thinking to ban it.

Challenges to adoption

If CA is so beneficial, why is it not getting scaled in India or got so much of attention in the discourse? There are several reasons which it faces. First, it is not a system which is "one size fits all". The CA system has soil as a focus, and we know as a fact, around the country, we have a considerable variation in soils and agro-ecological zones. This variation makes CA systems necessarily site-specific; in other words, what works in one place might not work in others. This one reason makes the practice to be 'adapted' and 'not adopted' by the farmers while following fundamental principles. The principles by and large remain the same, but how to make them work will depend on the type of crop grown, kind of farmer, level of mechanization, terrain and so forth.

Dr Amir Kassam, who manages the global conservation agriculture community of practice, in one of our orientation to CA, had suggested that the farmer should decide how to approach the principles, on a small 'testing plots' of 100 by 100 metres. With gradual success in their cropping choice, they can increase the area.

He further suggested the role of the extension should be limited to monitoring the process and facilitating for developing ecosystem needed. Such as delivering seed sowing implements machines. In India, the extension system is designed to work from top-down, i.e., research in labs and then taking it to the farmers. This approach of transfer of technology needs an overhaul. The farmers have to become the centre of research replication, with the support of the extension. This model is by and large adopted by ZBNF, which has also achieved a great deal of scale. In their model an innovative farmer, also called champion farmer, practices the principles in his farm, later she takes the site-specific methods to other farmers of her village. Such an extension system can overcome site and context specificity.

A second major challenge, as per our experience while working with Aga Khan Rural Support Programme-India, is to overcome the paradigm of tillage. Image of a farmer in India is always associated with a plough and a pair of the bullock, also depicted in many Bollywood movies. Embracing this system is like going against the wind, as it suggests to get rid of the plough, and ploughing. A mental barrier can be overruled through, 'demonstration effect', i.e., showing the results in farmer field schools and active involvement of frontline demonstrations by the champion or innovative farmers. My personal experience with farmers, and communication with individual promoters such as Dr Abha Pranjpe, a CA system promoter working in Madhya Pradesh, and Mr Sekhar (promoter of SRT), have made me realize that right kind of mechanization is telling. Farmers have to stop ploughing, but the question comes how to sow the seeds in the soil. Current extension system endorses 'summer deep ploughing' and fine seed-bed preparation for sowing. The adoption of the first principle, i.e., zero-tillage, requires crop-specific implements which can overcome the challenge to sow seeds in the residue mulch or cover crops. Site-specific implements such as Happy Seeder has picked up adoption in Punjab and Haryana as a panacea for crop residue burning. The implement is costly (approx. 1.5 lakhs) to be owned by the small farmers, whether it can solve the problem of mechanization in the CA system is debatable. India has about 22 per cent of cultivated land under mechanized tillage while our neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh and Sri-Lanka has about 80 per cent of mechanized tillage, all due to the small hand-operated tillers (see Biggs et al. 2011 ). The need to introduce small zero-till implements becomes pertinent as 86 per cent of landholding in India is below two hectares.

The third issue which is widely faced by the farmers, as also seen in direct seeding rice in Punjab recently, is the management of weeds. As the farmer stop ploughing, the emergence of weed may be very high in the beginning. Weeds may plummet the yields of farmers and also their welfare. As we have a considerable chunk of farmers those who live on margins, a sudden shift to the system is agronomic suicide, a mistake which many extension programmes commit in the beginning. As we have seen if the farmer adopts gradually from a small 'testing plots' and slowly to more area under the support of the extension departments, they may overcome this barrier. The problem of weed management is more prominent in the initial years of adoption. It gradually subsides in consecutive cropping seasons as leftover residue suppress the weed growth (see Fonteyne et al., 2020). One of the mental barriers of much non-profit organization as per my own conversation has revealed that there is a lot of anxiety about CA being herbicide intensive system, as also practised in Saguna rice technology. The system, although, can be made free from the use of herbicides as also observed in ZBNF and the CA work being promoted by Aga Khan Rural Support Programme-India in Madhya Pradesh.

Final take away

There is growing concern and action to mitigate groundwater crisis. The policymakers are determined to change the behaviour of farmers to preserve the water sustainably with particular focus on Punjab and Haryana. Government is piloting institutions such as incentivizing Rs. 7000 per acre in Haryana government under the scheme Mera Pani Meri Virasat to shift crop away from rice, less use of water under schemes such as "Pani Bachao Paise Kamao". Centrally sponsored schemes such as "Per Drop More Crop" is focused on demand-side management of the crop. What I feel is missing in the discourse, is how to manage the groundwater consumption through in-situ management of water. Conservation agriculture, a well-established system of cultivation, has found space in the policy document such as in an economic survey 2019-2020, and world water development report. Different initiatives such as Zero Budget farming, SRT, regenerative agriculture all can be dovetailed as conservation agriculture, as long as the farmers adopt all the important principles. A more focused intervention is needed to increase the area under the fundamental principles, does not matter if it comes with various colourful names. If there is any right time to begin for CA, it is now.