Highlights:

Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) is a state-wide agro-ecological transformation of the farming practices of its 6 million farmers over 6 million hectares and 50 million consumers. It is the largest transition to agroecology in the world, with 630,000 farmers already addressing multiple development challenges: rural livelihoods, access to nutritious food, biodiversity loss, climate change, water scarcity, and pollution.

The study is the first of its kind to assess the true costs and benefits of natural farming against other counterfactual farming methods by measuring all major economic, social, and health impacts.

The research used The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food Systems (TEEBAgriFood) framework: a holistic approach to comprehensively examine food systems and systematically identify links between agricultural practices and human well-being so that appropriate policy responses can be developed and adapted globally.

This study compared the impacts of APCNF with three other farming systems in Andhra Pradesh: chemical farming in the Godavari delta region, rainfed farming in the semi-arid region, and low-input tribal farming in the mountain region.

The results show strong evidence that APCNF offers a better alternative to the existing farming systems. Adopting APCNF led to greater crop diversity, similar or higher yields, higher incomes for farmers, lower input costs, improved local economies, improved social networks, improved health, and reduced health costs. Overall, APCNF gave highly positive returns
on public investment, suggesting APCNF to be the food production system with better economic, environmental, and social outcomes.

Importantly, this study shows that natural farming and agroecological transitions can comfortably feed communities with better yields and crop diversity than conventional farming methods, with important insights for policy makers in India and globally.

• The scale of APCNF demonstrates that agro-ecological practices can be scaled to meet the demand for food while addressing multiple environmental and social goals.

• While public investment costs for APCNF were higher than on counterfactual farms, the higher costs for farmers, communities, and the environment associated with counterfactual farming (loss of work hours, poorer health, and poorer soils) meant that APCNF actually resulted in a better holistic return on investment.

• Using True Cost Accounting (TCA) and the TEEBAgriFood framework highlighted the economic, social and human health benefits associated with APCNF and the increased costs associated with counter-factual farming. These would not be accounted for under traditional “yield-and-profit-only” metrics, but clearly show better returns on public investment after accounting for public benefits and costs.

• Using TCA can provide a holistic analysis to inform policy decision-making that aims to enhance economic development, reduce poverty, and improve health and environmental outcomes.

• Given ongoing climate impacts, there is an urgent need to scale inclusive climate-resilient models of agriculture. This research offers a clear assessment of environmentally friendly agricultural development that also supports social and economic goals.