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Cultivation Training

GA trains farmers and foresters in cultivation methods, bio-inputs, mechanization and technology and supports co-innovation with local methods. GA also helps to scale innovate extension systems

Highly Innovative Cultivation Methods

GA helps to train farmers in some of the world’s most innovative and successful cultivation methods, that were developed by GA’s co-founders in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 

 

These methods have proven to significantly outperform conventional chemical agriculture and forestry approaches. Because these approaches use no or few chemicals, they significantly reduce costs. They also increase productivity, incomes and the diversity and resilience of income types. They produce nutritious, chemical free food that supports the health of farmers and consumers. They are more resilient to droughts, floods, storms and pests. They regenerate soil, biodiversity and water. They increase the soil’s waterholding capacity and reduce water needs. They reduce GHG emissions and sequester carbon, making them one of the most important supports for the climate once they more and more replace chemical farming that causes over 25% of global GHG emissions. 

 

The world’s largest and fastest growing method that GA and its partners help to introduce to countries around the world in its South-South Co-innovation, Training and Implementation work is the Andhra Pradesh community-managed Natural Farming. Other methods include those of GA’s other co-founders who have in common that they integrate the regeneration of nature and society with the financial success of farmers, foresters and rural economies. 

Substituting Chemical with Bio-inputs

These methods replace chemical inputs, such as fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, that are increasingly expensive and supply chain challenged. Chemical inputs also have many negative side effects, including health challenges for farmers and consumers, reduction of biodiversity, increase of carbon emissions and desertification. Bio-inputs fulfill similar positive functions without these negative impacts of chemicals. In the case of APCNF’s ‘bio-stimulants’ they are based on an innovative application of biology. These bio-stimulants strengthen the soil’s aliveness and productivity that are being reduced by chemicals. They use only about 5% of the biomass of organic compost and can be produced with farmer’s own ingredients, radically reducing costs. These bio-stimulants increase the beneficial soil microbiology and significantly grow the plant’s roots and the wider root system that is part of the soil’s web of life and productivity. The bigger and stronger roots make the plants much more resilient to droughts, floods, storms and pests. 

 

For over 1.8 million farmers that use APCNF this approach has already led to much greater productivity, resilience and incomes. These bio-stimulants can be produced by individual farmers and at scale by farming communities with simple production tools. 

NFG Zambia

Appropriate Mechanization and Technology

Appropriate Mechanization and Technology can additionally improve productivity, quality, costs and incomes, and address other challenges and opportunities. They can reduce injuries, improve hard working conditions and climate challenges, which together with limited economic prospects deter many young people from becoming farmers. This is one of the food system’s biggest problems since the global average age of the world’s 550 million family farmers and foresters that produce 80% of global food supply is currently 55 years old. Combined with the kinds of capacity building in cultivation methods, value addition and market access that GA offer to farmers and foresters, mechanization and technology can be an important part of the solution. But they have to be adapted to the particular circumstances of smallholder farmers who typically need much smaller and more affordable machines and technology solutions. 

 

These and other post-harvest solutions such as milling, processing and other forms of value addition require investments that can be supported by blended finance and collective off take agreements of public procurement systems, such as for regenerative and healthy school meals and private sector buyers such as GA’s Brazilian partner Natura that support farmers along its value chain in the Amazon and other regions. Together they can provide the financing for appropriate mechanization and technology as part of a systemic solution.

Optimizing Training Methods

To turn Agroecology and Agroforestry into a new mainstream of agriculture and forestry, many of the 550 million family farmers need to be trained in innovative best practices and supported in their adaptation to local contexts. Yet around the world, extension leaders comment that their training systems are overloaded. Traditional extension approaches are rarely supported to keep up with agroecological and agroforestry innovations that integrate the regeneration of natural and social systems with productivity, resilience and the financial success of farmers and foresters. 

 

Class room seminars and short farm visit approaches insufficiently support adapting highly innovative approaches to diverse local contexts that requires ongoing attention and gradual co-innovation by hands-on trial and error. GA’s training method therefore complements traditional extension systems. In Zambia, for example, GA collaborates closely with the government’s agricultural colleges to add to the curriculum of 5,000 learners. GA also provides to farmers its APCNF farmer-coaches – successful farmers who received specific coaching training and ongoing support by experts. Instead of offering seminars and short visits they work for months on the ground with farming communities, co-creating local solutions by integrating the most suitable international and local best practices. This approach has delivered excellent results in Zambia, including much higher productivity, resilience and incomes – demonstrating that international co-innovation is possible and worthwhile. 

Scaling Approaches

In India, APCNF was able to scale in 10 years from 40,000 to 1.8 million farmers because it invested in the training of over 10,000 of these farmer-coaches. They are among the most successful farmers of their villages, which means that they are not only capable but also respected by their peers – a key condition for effective training and co-innovation of localized solutions. 


To stimulate local innovation, productivity and profitability, GA and its partners brought APCNF farmer-coaches to Zambia to work with local farmers. They also train Zambian farmer-coaches who can eventually replace the Indian farmer-coaches, leading to a self-sustaining support system for significant scaling. Scaling is further supported by working with large national and international farming networks. 

 

The news of strong results spreads across these networks, naturally creating demand by many more farmers and foresters who also want to improve their results. In Zambia, GA is working among other partners with the Salesian Sisters. They are active in hundreds of thousands of villages around the world. 

 

The Zambian success already led to requests by other Salesian communities in the Philippines and Brazil. They will become a next step on the way to potentially serving many more national communities. Organizing a Co-Innovation Learning Journey to India for leaders of Brasil’s government and farmer-organizations with over 3 million members, is now leading to the development of more and more Hubs for Co-Innovation, Capacity Building and Implementation across large networks of farmer and forester organizations. Learn more about these journeys here. 

 

Scaling also requires transition financing until new approaches generate so much additional income that they become self-sustaining. And scaling can be greatly increased by effective public policies that optimize enabling environments. Therefore GA and its partners also work on these aspects, see the Blended Finance and the Policy sections of this website. 

Natural Farming Global

Partnering to Adapt and Scale APCNF Internationally 

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