Trees and solar panels are helping Indian farmers reduce their carbon impact.

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• agroforestry
• ramesh
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Ramesh, who goes by the first letter of his father's name followed by his first name in many regions of southern India, adds, "I lost a lot of money cultivating groundnuts with chemical agricultural practises." His returns were meagre, and the chemicals were pricey.

Finally, in 2017, he stopped using the substances. Both my production and revenue have grown ever since I began using regenerative agriculture approaches like agroforestry and natural farming, he adds.

The term "agroforestry" refers to the practise of intercropping various woody perennials (trees, shrubs, palms, bamboos, etc.) with agricultural crops (SN: 7/3/21 & 7/17/21, p. 30). To increase soil nutrients, organic waste like cow dung, cow urine, and jaggery (a solid dark sugar derived from sugarcane) may be used in place of chemical fertilisers and pesticides in natural farming. Ramesh added papaya, millets, okra, and eggplant (called brinjal locally) to his initial groundnuts and few tomatoes harvest.

A paper in 2020 in Carbon Management estimated that India's yearly carbon emissions, now at 2.88 billion metric tonnes, might decline by between 45 million and 62 million tonnes if all farmers made the switch to solar like Parmar. Out of an estimated 20 million to 25 million groundwater pumps, only roughly 250,000 are solar-powered.

Growing food while attempting to reduce already high greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural techniques is challenging for a country that must cater for what will soon be the world's biggest population. Presently, India's agricultural sector and livestock are responsible for 14% of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions. When you include in the agricultural sector's electrical needs, you get to 22 percent.

Farmers like Ramesh and Parmar, who are part of a very small but expanding group, are receiving help from government and non-government organisations to make structural changes to their farms. More work has to be done to reach the estimated 146 million farmers in India who tend to the country's 160 million hectares of farmland. Farmers are one of India's major emitting industries, yet their successes show that things can improve.

Feeding the earth, supporting farmers

Dry spells, irregular rainfall, and more frequent heat waves and tropical cyclones are already having a significant impact on India's agriculture. Climate-smart agriculture has cut emissions, according to Indu Murthy, sector leader for climate, environment, and sustainability at the Center for Study of Science, Technology, and Policy in Bengaluru. She adds that farmers would also benefit from being able to "cope with unanticipated shifts and weather patterns" with the support of such a system.

This is the thinking behind many of the sustainable and regenerative farming methods that fall under the agroecology umbrella. According to Y.V. Malla Reddy, director of Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre, natural farming and agroforestry are two components of this system that are finding more and more takers throughout India's different terrain.

“For me, the key difference is the change in attitude of people towards trees and plants in the previous several decades,” Reddy adds. "People today see trees, particularly fruit and utility trees, as being a source of revenue, while in the '70s and '80s, people were not very mindful of the worth of the trees." For than half a century, Reddy has worked to promote environmentally responsible farming in India. In addition to its fruit, trees like the pongamia, subabul, and avisa may also be economically useful since they supply food for cattle and biomass that can be burned.

The Increasing Role of Solar Energy

It may take a number of years, perhaps decades, for carbon sequestration efforts that use agroecology principles to bear fruit. But emissions may be rapidly reduced by employing renewable energy in farming. As a result, in 2016, the non-profit International Water Management Institute (IWMI) started a programme called Solar Power as Remunerative Crop in the hamlet of Dhundi.

According to Shilp Verma of IWMI in Anand, who studies water, energy, and food policy, "the main danger climate change offers, especially to farmers, is the unpredictability that it brings." Any method used in farming that gives farmers more tools to deal with climate change's unpredictability is a good thing. When farmers are able to extract groundwater in a manner that is good for the environment and offers financial incentives for leaving part of it below, they are better able to weather uncertain times. He recommends reducing pumping and selling the resulting energy excess to the grid. Profits may be made from solar energy.