India should go for Brown Revolution 2.0 to restore soil health

The Hindu

2 days ago

India faces a serious challenge in the management of its agricultural residues. With over 350-500 million tonnes generated annually, most agro-waste is either burned or left to decompose inappropriately, resulting in severe air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and the persistent depletion of organic carbon in the soil. Drawing on the transformative success of the Amul Cooperative in the dairy sector, the country should go for a decentralised, rural cooperative model to convert agro-waste into soil-enriching organic amendments, including compost, vermicompost, and biochar.
While the first Brown Revolution, initiated by Hiralal Chaudhary, was for promoting leather and coffee in tribal areas of Visakhapatnam, Brown Revolution 2.0 seeks to restore soil health of India. This will help in securing the long-term food productivity, creating rural livelihoods, and bolstering India's climate commitments as the most populous nation. The integration of AI-based monitoring systems and carbon credit mechanisms will ensure efficiency, traceability, and economic viability.
Declining soil fertility
The fertility of India's soils has been in decline for decades, in large part due to the steady reduction in organic carbon in the soil that followed the high-input and intensive monocropping farming. Recent research underscores the risk this poses, as a large proportion of Indian farmland now lies below the critical thresholds of soil organic matter needed for sustainable productivity. Brown Revolution 2.0 is proposed as a national movement to address this crisis. By recycling the enormous quantum of crop residues and agro-waste generated across field crops (such as rice, wheat, maize, cotton, and sugar cane), horticulture (vegetables, fruits, flowers, and tubers), oil seeds, and plantation crops (including coconut, areca nut, oil palm, tea and coffee), and returning their organic content to farmland, sustainable agriculture can be restored. Adopting a cooperative model, inspired by Amul's success in organising dairy producers, ensures inclusivity and the capacity to rapidly scale up from local clusters to national coverage.
Agro-waste and hazards
India produces approximately 350-990 million tonnes of crop residues and agro-waste every year. In many districts, the organic fraction of this waste, largely from fruits, vegetables, and staples, exceeds 40%, and in certain horticultural regions, may reach 70%. However, less than 20% of this biomass is currently recycled in a scientific and productive manner, while the majority is openly burned, dumped, or left unmanaged, leading not only to a loss of valuable nutrients and carbon but also to a range of environmental and health hazards. Plantation crop wastes are another group as they are highly recalcitrant and accumulate over a long period of time posing both environmental and health hazard.
The most visible outcome of poor agro-waste management is severe air pollution. The routine burning of crop residues, particularly in North India, results in massive emissions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), noxious gases, and greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. For example, every tonne of paddy straw burned is estimated to release three kilograms of particulate matter, 60 kilograms of carbon monoxide, and 1,460 kilograms of carbon dioxide, along with less yet significant quantities of ash and sulphur dioxide. Water bodies suffer from eutrophication when run-off from waste dumps leads to excessive nutrient loads, and rural health faces risks from both air and water contamination. These impacts echo across the economy and amplify rural-urban disparities.
Why policy focus must shift
Existing policy frameworks, while increasingly attentive to the potential value of agro-waste as industrial feedstock for biofuels or high-value biochemicals, have often ignored the foundational role that organic waste recycling plays in soil health restoration and food security (Mohanty et al., 2024; Sharma et al., 2022). While conversion to high-value industrial products is attractive for quick economic returns, only a minority of residues are suitable for such uses, and this focus risks diverting potential soil amendments away from the land. The depletion of organic carbon in the soil not only undermines future yields and the very viability of agricultural production but also saps rural incomes and estranges rural communities from value addition. In the long term, without immediate attention to soil health, even the industrial use of agro-wastes will be unsustainable, as feedstock volume and quality both decline.
Amul model
The transformative trajectory of Amul in the dairy sector offers a clear organisational template for Brown Revolution 2.0. While Amul federated village-level milk producers into a vertically integrated, member-owned profit-sharing enterprise that enabled both local participation and economies of scale, a similar model can be established for agro-waste recycling. Local recycling cooperatives will handle the collection, scientific processing, and marketing of compost, vermicompost, and biochar, returning much of this output directly to the soils of their communities while also creating tradeable surplus. Technical support could be provided by institutions such as ICAR, SAUs, and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), with capacity-building for rural entrepreneurs embedded throughout. Pooled logistics, shared finance mechanisms, quality control, and traceability will be managed in the cooperative federated structure.
Scientific advances, AI integration
The effectiveness and efficiency of this model can be dramatically furthered by leveraging new technologies. Rapid in-vessel composting, optimised vermicomposting, and modular biochar units facilitate wide adoption and high-quality amendments. The integration of artificial intelligence and IoT-based platforms allows real-time tracking of soil health, optimisation of compost production, and predictive logistics for biomass flows. Such data-driven approaches also enable transparent monitoring for carbon credit schemes, ensure that products meet quality standards, and empower farmers with timely feedback and recommendations.
The strategic alignment of Brown Revolution 2.0 with national agricultural priorities and the latest recommendations of expert bodies is critical. The ICAR and NAAS, in both policy papers and demonstration projects, have highlighted the need for region-specific agro-waste recycling, the promotion of custom hiring centres or cooperatives for composting, and the provision of incentives tied to verified improvements in organic carbon in the soil. Government compendia such as 'Creating Wealth from Agricultural Waste' detail scalable and field-proven technologies and practices, many of which are ready for cooperative deployment.
Policy recommendations
A robust policy framework to realise Brown Revolution 2.0 should include a mandate and corresponding funding for cooperative-based agro-waste collection and processing clusters in every agricultural district. It must offer economic incentives similar to a minimum support price for collected and processed biomass. Decentralised composting and biochar units ought to be subsidised, and their management integrated into KVK and extension programmes. The prohibition of open burning and haphazard disposal should be strictly enforced, paired with logistical and financial support to ensure that viable alternatives are available. A national organic carbon credit registry will recognise and reward the sequestration of carbon in soils, harnessing both domestic and international climate finance, while AI-driven monitoring platforms will ensure process transparency and accountability. The recycling of agro-waste should be closely linked to the Soil Health Card scheme, empowering farmers with data and feedback both on the status of their soils and the value of recycled amendments, supplemented by targeted outreach. Research and demonstration efforts must be continuous, regionally varied, and closely tied to the needs of local farmers, while human capital must be cultivated with a special focus on women, youth, and self-help groups.
Strategic benefits
Brown Revolution 2.0 promises to restore soil structure and fertility, enhance water and nutrient retention, and improve long-term yields and resilience to both drought and flooding. Socio-economically, it will create millions of new rural jobs in logistics, production, technology, and service roles, strengthen farmer and cooperative incomes, and reduce reliance on expensive fertilizers. Environmentally, the shift will be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, improve water quality and biodiversity, and strengthen India's claims for climate-linked rewards. Technologically, the process will become a flagship for data-driven, technology-enabled sustainability.
Sustainability, social inclusion
In sum, Brown Revolution 2.0, focusing on returning agro-waste-derived humus to Indian soils through decentralised, inclusive, cooperative action, represents not a secondary or low-hanging policy option, but a mature and foundational strategy for securing food security, climate resilience, and rural prosperity for generations. National leadership is urgently needed to prioritise and scale this movement; in doing so, India will once again set a global example in combining scientific sustainability with social inclusion.
Murali Gopal is Principal Scientist, Agricultural Microbiology and and Head of the Division of Physiology, Biochemistry and Post-Harvest Technology; and Alka Gupta is Principal Scientist, Agricultural Microbiology, of ICAR-Central Plantation Crops Research Institute Kasaragod, Kerala; views expressed are personal