The Nature Conservancy (TNC), in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry Food and Agriculture Center of Excellence (CII FACE), will convene a two-day national conference on Scaling Regenerative Agriculture for Food Security and Climate Resilience in India. 

Discussions will build on insights from TNC’s PRANA (Promoting Regenerative and No Burn Agriculture) programme, which is working across 6,286 villages in Punjab and has engaged more than 650,000 farmers to accelerate the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices. 

 The convening will bring together senior government officials, farmers, industry leaders, researchers, multilateral organisations and development finance institutions, to explore pathways for scaling regenerative agriculture and strengthening the resilience, sustainability, and productivity of India’s food systems in the face of growing climate challenges. 

For instance, India extracted 241 billion cubic metres of groundwater in 2023, with nearly 90 per cent used for agriculture, placing immense pressure on water resources. Agriculture and livestock together account for nearly one-fifth of India’s total greenhouse gas emissions, with methane from rice cultivation and livestock, and nitrous oxide from fertilizer use driving the bulk of this footprint. 

Rice cultivation remains highly resource-intensive, consuming 3,000–5,000 litres of water per kilogram of crop and generating nearly 4 million tonnes of methane emissions each year. Crop residue burning further exacerbates the environmental crisis, contributing to hazardous PM2.5 pollution in Northwest India during October and November.  

Against this context, the convening will offer a multi-stakeholder platform to examine evidence-based solutions across the food system.  Over the past four years, PRANA has been working with farmers to reduce crop residue burning in Punjab.  The programme is also promoting regenerative rice management practices like Alternate Wetting and Drying and Direct Seeding of Rice which aim to reduce groundwater use and methane emissions.

PRANA demonstrates that crop residue burning is driven less by an unwillingness to change and more by operational and economic constraints, including narrow sowing windows, limited access to machinery, and inadequate incentives.  Through its interventions to address these constraints, PRANA’s journey has led to impact at scale.

Since the 2021 baseline assessment, nearly 700,000 hectares have transitioned to no-burn practices, helping avoid an estimated 3.8 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions. PRANA has also conserved approximately 400 billion litres of water through its crop residue management and sustainable rice management techniques across Punjab.

Sushil Saigal, Interim Managing Director, Nature Conservancy India Solutions (NCIS), that is assisting The Nature Conservancy on the PRANA programme, said: “Four years of PRANA have shown that sustainable food systems are within reach – if we act together. This convening is an invitation to India’s policymakers, industries, scientists, financial institutions, and philanthropists to look at the evidence, engage with farmers who are living this transition, and commit to the investments and policies needed to take it to scale. We are proud to be associated with this moment which is both urgent and timely.”  

The workshop is spread across two days, where Day One will focus on sustainable agricultural practices and their demonstrated impact, while Day two will highlight innovations in agri-food resilience, financing models, and policy pathways.    

Sanjay Sacheti, Co-Chairman, CII National Council on Agriculture and Country Head, Olam Agro, said: “India’s food system transformation cannot happen without active private sector participation. Through blended finance, supply chain integration, and industry-led partnerships, there is a significant opportunity to unlock investment that reaches smallholder farmers at scale. CII FACE is committed to facilitating such cross-sector collaboration and we aim to set a concrete agenda for public-private action in the months ahead.”