The Future of Regenerative Agriculture is Agroecology: Dialogue with Ramanjaneyulu GV

Agribusiness Matters with Venky Ramachandran

With every David and Goliath Agritech player now co-opting ‘Regenerative Agriculture’, ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ has officially entered the trough of disillusionment.

Mind you, in a country like India, ‘regenerative agriculture’ is as much illegible as ‘organic agriculture’ or ‘natural farming’. Rightfully so, because each agroclimatic zone adapts ‘agroecology’ based on their specific ecological niche.

In a country with more than 1.8 million organic producers spanning over 2.66 million hectares (State of Organic Agriculture 2023), the challenge that India faces in the context of scaling ‘organic agriculture’ is extremely complex.

In August’22, when I wrote ‘Organic Foods and the Tricky Question of Luxury Beliefs’, I wrote,

“Organic food is now a "luxury belief" among the privileged rich who are now obsessed with talking so much about synthetic chemicals inside food, without realizing how badly the economics is stacked against the farmer to grow food and gain a penny more, leave aside safe food (and genuine concerns one may have about safe food)”

What makes organic food ‘wickedly tricky’ boils down to trust vs certification.

“On the one end, Trust doesn’t scale. You can only investigate a smaller group of farmers and investigate if they are serious about regenerative farming practices.

On the other end, Certification is never foolproof to track the food production process. Even if you install sensors, farmers know their way through and can make sure that only approved data passes through.”

Should we dismiss “Organic farming” because of its operational measurement challenges? How do we address the tricky question of luxury beliefs in organic foods? How do we scale agroecology in smallholding contexts?

To navigate these challenging questions, I spoke with Ramanjaneyulu GV, one of the foremost advocates for pesticide-free farming in India.