Introduction:
Regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring soil health, biodiversity and ecosystem functions while maintaining farm productivity. However, its adoption among India’s small and marginal farmers remains limited.
Major Challenges:
- High transition risk: Benefits such as improved soil fertility accrue gradually, while farmers face immediate risks of lower yields during the transition period.
- Limited financial capacity: Small farmers often lack resources to invest in composting, mulching, cover crops, bio-inputs and diversified farming.
- Knowledge gaps: Limited access to extension services and technical knowledge makes adoption of regenerative practices difficult.
- Input and market constraints: Availability of quality bio-inputs, seeds and farm machinery is uneven; premium markets for sustainably produced crops are also underdeveloped.
- Small and fragmented holdings: Fragmentation makes crop diversification, livestock integration and efficient resource management difficult.
- Weak institutional support: Existing agricultural policies and procurement systems remain largely oriented towards conventional input-intensive production.
Way Forward:
- Strengthen extension services through FPOs, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and farmer field schools.
- Provide transition incentives, credit and risk insurance to small farmers.
- Promote local bio-input centres, custom-hiring facilities and community composting.
- Develop value chains and certification/traceability systems for regenerative produce.
- Encourage region-specific regenerative models integrating indigenous practices with modern science.
Conclusion:
A farmer-centric approach combining technology, finance, markets and institutional support can make regenerative agriculture economically viable and environmentally sustainable for small farmers.
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