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By Julie Mollins
For decades, farmers in India have cultivated the fields using age old farming techniques, but now land managers are looking for new ways to boost rice and wheat production, while doing it sustainably.
In the heartlands of India’s major crop-producing regions, soils are losing organic matter while agricultural systems face increasing pressure on land and water resources. In some areas, crop residues are burned after harvest, contributing to soil degradation, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Now farmers are leading change.
Climate-smart solutions take root
The India project under the 27-country Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program highlights how sustainable and inclusive approaches can transform food systems by integrating climate-smart technologies, efficient resource use, and community empowerment.
Through innovations such as direct seeded rice (DSR), crop diversification, residue management machinery, and convergence with government schemes, nearly a quarter of a million farmers are adopting practices that conserve natural resources, reduce emissions, and strengthen livelihoods. These efforts also offer a promising blueprint for agricultural transformation far beyond India’s borders.
So far, 28,700 farmers have received training, more than 22,000 are adopting sustainable practices, and more than 13,600 hectares of land are under sustainable practices.
Across project landscapes, interventions are tailored to local conditions: DSR is considered a water-saving alternative to labor-intensive transplanting systems; farm ponds support water harvesting and conservation; and crop diversification through maize, millets, groundnut, and legumes is helping reduce dependence on mono-cropping and strengthen ecological resilience.
Project coordinators are seeing positive results. “Introducing conservation and mulching techniques has improved soil health and nutrients, improving farmers’ income by diversifying cropping options while making use of residual soil moisture,” said Vinay Singh, National Technical Coordinator of Food Systems and Nutrition for FOLUR India with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Some of the most striking innovations have been the smallest yet most transformative in impact: farmer advisory messages in Hindi, Punjabi, and Odia sent via WhatsApp; a Shredder–Seeder–Spreader that incorporates crop stubble -- formerly burned -- into mulch and enriches the soil; a yeast-based seed treatment that reduces water use before germination. Women farmers, long present in the fields are now taking structural leadership roles in ecosystem restoration.
Women, markets, and the future of the transition
Women's Self-Help Groups — collectives federated under India's National Rural Livelihoods Mission — reaches deep into communities and endures beyond individual project cycles.
The approach is deliberately context-sensitive: in eastern states such as Chhattisgarh and Odisha, where women already hold significant roles in seed systems and forest-product harvesting, interventions strengthen what is already there.
In more mechanised settings like Punjab and Haryana, tailored strategies focus on post-harvest management, horticulture, and agri-preneurship. Across all sites, the goal is the same: a transition from seeing women as beneficiaries to recognizing them as producers, decision-makers, and value chain actors — tracked through a gender-disaggregated monitoring system measuring women's participation, adoption rates, and integration into capacity-building and service delivery.
The project shows that gender and youth inclusion must be intentional, achieved through flexible engagement and links women to concrete value‑chain opportunities, said Konda Chavva, Assistant FAO Representative in India.
In Balrampur district, this approach came to life across 50 villages. Working through Cluster Level Federations of women's Self-Help Groups, the project engaged over 1,500 of the groups to lead village-level putting forward more than 1,000 farm pond proposals in village councils.
Over 2,575 farmers were trained in natural farming, soil health, and post-harvest management. Fifty Water User Associations, with active women's participation, now govern the water resources created. The lesson: when women's collectives drive the planning, ecological restoration and social resilience advance together.
Early gains — and a model taking shape
Private sector engagement has been strengthened through a national roundtable bringing together rice industry actors, exporters, certification bodies, and the Sustainable Rice Platform to advance sustainable value chains, traceability, and market-linked incentives. The project has also contributed to global knowledge exchange through participation in forums in Vietnam, Istanbul, and Malaysia, positioning it within a broader conversation on the future of food systems.
Konda Chavva, Assistant FAO Representative, emphasized the need for this change to remain in the hands of the farmers. “Strong community ownership, participatory planning, and practical field demonstrations have proven critical for continuing trust and uptake.”
The project leverages existing government schemes to de-risk the adoption of sustainable practices among smallholders, said Singh, adding that differences across states underline the importance of administrative agility, including alignment with different levels of government and strong partnerships with technical institutions and nongovernmental organizations.
Preliminary assessments of the project interventions are encouraging, indicating improved soil structure, increased organic matter, reduced salinity, and more efficient water use.
The FOLUR India project aims to sustain the momentum created among the 22,000 farmers already adopting sustainable practices and support broader uptake across project landscapes.
