Rebuilding Farming Systems: Regenerative Agriculture for a Resilient India
A government release highlighted regenerative agriculture as a pathway to restore soil health, improve biodiversity, and build climate resilience in Indian farming systems after decades of intensive, input-heavy cultivation.
The release notes that while India's agricultural growth over recent decades has secured food output, long-term productivity increasingly depends on the health of soils and surrounding ecosystems, which conventional practices have degraded.
Regenerative agriculture is presented as a holistic set of practices, including soil restoration, crop diversification, and reduced chemical dependence, distinct from but related to existing natural/organic farming missions.
The release links regenerative practices to broader national goals of climate resilience, farmer income security, and ecosystem restoration.
Regenerative Agriculture: Definition and Core Principles
Regenerative agriculture is an outcome-based approach to farming that seeks to restore and enhance soil health, protect water and biodiversity, and improve long-term farm productivity and resilience, rather than merely sustaining current output. It is built around core practices: minimizing soil disturbance (reduced/no tillage), maintaining continuous soil cover (cover cropping, mulching), diversifying crops through rotation and intercropping, integrating livestock, and incorporating trees through agroforestry.
Key Details
- Core practices: cover cropping, reduced/no-till farming, crop rotation, agroforestry, and increased use of organic inputs for soil nutrition.
- The approach is outcome-focused (measured by soil organic carbon, biodiversity, and resilience gains) rather than input-restriction-focused.
- FAO's Global Soil Partnership promotes aligned practices (crop rotation, organic amendments, reduced tillage) under its Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management.
The government's push frames regenerative agriculture as the umbrella concept explaining why India's existing schemes (natural farming, soil health monitoring) matter for long-term productivity, not just short-term output.
Distinguishing Regenerative, Organic, and Natural Farming (BPKP/ZBNF)
These terms are often conflated but rest on different philosophies. Organic farming is a certified, input-substitution-based system replacing synthetic chemicals with organic-approved inputs. Natural farming, promoted in India as Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati (BPKP), holds that soil already contains all nutrients needed for plant growth and relies on on-farm biomass recycling, cow dung/urine-based formulations, and zero external purchased inputs — it is essentially a zero-budget, Indianised model. Regenerative agriculture is broader still, an outcome-oriented framework (soil health, biodiversity, resilience) that can encompass elements of both, without being tied to a specific certification or input regime.
Key Details
- BPKP was launched in 2019-20 as a sub-mission under the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), based on Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) principles.
- Under BPKP, financial assistance of ₹12,200 per hectare over 3 years is provided for cluster formation, training, and certification support.
- The National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) was approved by the Union Cabinet on 25 November 2024 as a standalone Centrally Sponsored Scheme (continuing through the 15th Finance Commission period, 2025-26), aiming to scale natural farming with scientific backing for climate resilience and safe food.
- As of the latest reporting, NMNF implementation covers roughly 18,786 clusters across about 8.8 lakh hectares.
The release's call for "regenerative agriculture" builds on and extends India's existing natural-farming policy architecture (BPKP/NMNF), positioning soil restoration as the connecting thread across these related but distinct farming philosophies.
Soil Health Card Scheme
Launched in 2015, the Soil Health Card (SHC) scheme provides farmers with a report on their soil's nutrient status across 12 parameters, along with crop-wise fertilizer and soil-amendment recommendations, issued once every two years to help farmers optimize input use and protect soil health.
Key Details
- The scheme has issued over 25.89 crore soil health cards to date.
- It tests soil across 12 parameters, covering macro- and micronutrients along with physical/chemical soil properties.
- SHC data underpins evidence-based recommendations that support the shift toward regenerative and natural farming practices by identifying where synthetic input reduction is agronomically viable.
Soil Health Cards represent the government's principal diagnostic tool for tracking soil degradation and guiding farmers toward regenerative practices — the empirical backbone for the release's soil-restoration message.
Land Degradation Neutrality and India's NDC Commitments
Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) is a target under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), aiming to ensure the amount and quality of land resources remain stable or improve. India has committed to restoring a defined area of degraded land under this framework, aligning with its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, which include commitments on creating additional carbon sink through forest and tree cover and reducing the emissions intensity of GDP.
Key Details
- India voluntarily committed to achieve land degradation neutrality and to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 (a target reaffirmed at UNCCD COP14, hosted by India in 2019).
- India's updated NDCs target reducing emissions intensity of GDP and creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.
- Soil organic carbon restoration through regenerative practices directly supports both LDN and carbon-sink NDC targets.
Regenerative agriculture is positioned as a farm-level lever supporting India's international land-restoration and climate commitments, tying a domestic policy push directly to global environmental governance frameworks.
- Soil Health Card scheme (since 2015): over 25.89 crore cards issued; tests across 12 soil parameters; renewed every 2 years.
- National Mission on Natural Farming: Cabinet-approved 25 November 2024; covers approximately 18,786 clusters over about 8.8 lakh hectares.
- BPKP (launched 2019-20, sub-mission under PKVY): financial assistance of ₹12,200/hectare over 3 years.
- India's UNCCD commitment: restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 (reaffirmed at COP14, hosted in India, 2019).
- India's NDC target: additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent through added forest/tree cover by 2030.