Eco-friendly agriculture holds promise but farmers say they need more support to make the switch

Mumbai chauffeur Nutan Pathak is a farmer at heart.

Pathak, 44, migrated from his village in eastern Bihar state over two decades ago to work in the big city on the other side of the country, hoping to supplement his family’s income reliant on wheat and rice from their 1.5-acre (0.6-hectare) farm.

His decision to leave paid off. Pathak’s steady salary from the city job kept his family afloat even as crop yields dropped consistently due to the droughts and floods ravaging his farm.

“It either doesn’t rain or it rains so much that it floods. We get just one yield every year. It wasn’t like this when I was growing up,” Pathak told Context.

Now he leases his field to villagers who share half of any profit with him. But he would like to go back to his land if a push towards eco-friendly agriculture helps farmers cope with worsening climate pressures and pays off financially.

Agriculture is India’s biggest employer, supporting the livelihoods of 250 million farmers and informal labourers – but their work is getting harder as climate change makes living off farming difficult, pushing up debt, migration and suicides.

Worries over falling yields have driven up the use of chemical fertilisers that are stripping the soil of nutrients...

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