The research comes at a pivotal moment for Indian agriculture. The Green Revolution transformed the country’s food security, lifting wheat production from roughly 10 million tonnes in 1960 to more than 100 million tonnes by 2020, but it did so through synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and high-yielding varieties that carried hidden ecological costs. According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, more than 30 percent of India’s land area is now degraded, driven by extensive pesticide use, water and wind erosion, and vegetation decline. The Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that if current trends continue, as much as 90 percent of the world’s topsoil could be at risk of erosion by 2050, a threat that lands with particular force on the fragile slopes of the Himalayas.

Himachal Pradesh offers an ideal testing ground for alternatives. Nearly 90 percent of the state’s population is rural, 87 percent of its farmers are small or marginal, and agriculture employs over 65 percent of the workforce while contributing about 13 percent of the Gross State Domestic Product. The apple industry alone generates roughly 456 million US dollars annually, and off-season vegetable cultivation adds another 522 million dollars. Yet concerns over pesticide exposure have grown acute: a 2023 meeting of 100 cancer specialists in Shimla called for strict regulations on pesticide use, citing elevated cancer rates in the region. In response, the state government has championed Subhash Palekar Natural Farming, an agroecological approach that eliminates synthetic inputs entirely and relies on farm-derived resources such as Jeevamrit, a fermented microbial culture, Beejamrit for seed treatment, Ghanjeevamrit, and botanical sprays known as Agniaster and Neemaster.

The research team, led by Rohit Kumar Vashishat and colleagues, purposively selected six districts—Solan, Sirmaur, Kangra, Hamirpur, Mandi, and Una—spanning diverse agro-ecological zones. From district lists of trained natural farmers, they drew 60 households per district through simple random sampling, yielding 360 farms surveyed during the 2023–24 agricultural year. Crucially, because natural farming adoption in the state is gradual, most sampled farmers were simultaneously practicing both systems on different plots. This enabled a within-household comparison: each farmer’s natural farming economics were contrasted with their own chemical farming experience on adjacent land, controlling for the confounding effects of management skill, soil, and market access that plague between-farm comparisons.

The structural differences between the systems were striking. Every natural farming household practiced intercropping, and every cropping system included at least one leguminous crop to boost biological nitrogen fixation and soil fertility. Dominant summer combinations included maize with black gram (27 percent of households), maize with French bean (26 percent), and tomato–capsicum–French bean mixtures (16.7 percent). Winter systems centered on wheat with pea (30 percent) and wheat with chickpea (23 percent). Mulching with crop residues conserved soil moisture, while a technique called Whapasa—managing soil moisture and aeration through reduced irrigation frequency—replaced conventional watering schedules. Natural farming plots achieved a cropping intensity of 197 percent, meaning nearly two crops were harvested per unit of sown land each year, compared with 184 percent under chemical farming.

To compare the productivity of diverse intercrop mixtures against single crops, the researchers converted multi-crop yields into a crop equivalent yield using prevailing market prices. The results were emphatic. In the Kharif season, natural farming combinations outyielded their chemical counterparts by 6 to 154 percent in most cases. The maize–French bean system reached an equivalent yield of 11.7 tonnes per hectare against 5.2 tonnes for chemically grown French bean alone, while the sugarcane–French bean–turmeric combination posted an extraordinary 133.5 tonnes per hectare versus 80.8 tonnes for chemical sugarcane. In the Rabi season, every natural farming combination outperformed its chemical counterpart except wheat–pea, which fell short of chemically grown sole-crop pea. The exceptions clustered in vegetable–pulse mixes, where capsicum and pea performed slightly better as chemically grown monocrops.

The economics told an even more compelling story. Cultivation costs under natural farming were lower in nearly every comparison: the tomato–capsicum–French bean system cost 858 dollars per hectare against 1,300 dollars under chemical management, a 51 percent reduction, while maize–French bean costs fell 29 percent and wheat–pea–mustard costs dropped 37 percent in winter. The single exception was capsicum–French bean, where natural farming ran 4 percent more expensive, likely due to higher labour demands in vegetable intercropping. Net returns followed suit. Maize–French bean returned 1,919 dollars per hectare under natural farming, a 197 percent increase over chemical French bean, and the sugarcane–French bean–turmeric system earned 5,307 dollars per hectare, 140 percent above chemical sugarcane. The most dramatic gain came in winter, where wheat–pea–cauliflower returned 1,648 dollars per hectare—a 490 percent increase over chemically grown wheat’s 279 dollars. Only wheat–pea–mustard lost money relative to chemical mustard, returning 29 percent less.

What drives this performance? The team deployed a Cobb-Douglas production function alongside machine learning tools—LASSO regression and Random Forest modelling—to disentangle the contribution of each natural farming input. Three inputs emerged as statistically significant productivity engines: Ghanjeevamrit, Agniaster, and seed, with production elasticities of 0.340, 0.323, and 0.315 respectively. Random Forest analysis independently ranked seed and Agniaster as the most influential predictors of output, corroborating the econometric result. Conversely, labour showed a significant negative elasticity of −0.294, and Beejamrit was also negative, suggesting these resources were being over-applied relative to their marginal returns. Efficiency ratios based on marginal value products confirmed the pattern: Agniaster scored highest at 0.538, followed by Ghanjeevamrit at 0.486 and seed at 0.425, while labour, Beejamrit, and Jeevamrit registered negative ratios. The authors note this points to a clear opportunity—natural farming’s profitability depends less on applying every traditional preparation uniformly and more on allocating the right inputs efficiently.

Why do farmers switch? Garrett ranking of adoption factors placed low cost of production first, followed by locally available resources requiring no purchased external inputs, enhanced soil health, increased yields, and reduced irrigation requirements. Chemical-free produce quality, lower crop failure risk, freedom from farm credit debt, and the revival of traditional knowledge rounded out the top motivations. The findings arrive as Himachal Pradesh scales its CETARA-NF farmer self-certification system and targets 20,000 hectares under natural farming. The authors caution that their evidence is specific to Himalayan agroecological systems and should not be generalized without validation elsewhere, and they call for long-term research on soil health, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions. But for the smallholders who dominate mountain agriculture, the message is concrete: diversifying crops, brewing local biological inputs, and cutting purchased chemicals can simultaneously lower financial risk and raise household income—a combination few agricultural technologies have achieved.

Subject of Research: Comparative economic and resource-use efficiency analysis of natural farming versus chemical farming systems in the Western Himalayas

Article Title: Resource-efficient sustainable farming systems: A comparative study of natural and chemical farming practices in Western Himalayas

Article References: Vashishat, R. K., Divyanshu, Sharma, S., Dev, I., Chandel, R. S., Chandel, A., Shraddha, Yang, X.-M., András, K., & Khargotra, R. (2026). Resource-efficient sustainable farming systems: A comparative study of natural and chemical farming practices in Western Himalayas. Environmental Challenges, 25, Article 101668. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2026.101668

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.envc.2026.101668

Keywords: natural farming, Himachal Pradesh, sustainable agriculture, intercropping, Subhash Palekar Natural Farming, resource-use efficiency, Cobb-Douglas production function, net returns, soil health, Western Himalayas, pesticides, smallholder farmers

The team began by searching the Web of Science database for publications from 2015 to 2024, using search strings for conventional farming, organic farming, and natural farming, and then refining the results with terms related to microbial activity, microbial dynamics, and greenhouse gases. After removing duplicates and screening for relevance, 118 articles remained for detailed analysis: 30 on conventional farming, 50 on organic farming, and 38 on natural farming. The bibliographic data were then visualized using VOSviewer, a software tool that maps keyword co-occurrence, with node size indicating how often a term appears and links between nodes revealing how closely related research themes are. The authors stress that this mapping identifies research trends and thematic structures rather than direct biological effects; the biological conclusions came from a separate comparative synthesis of experimental literature.

The publication trends tell a story of shifting scientific priorities. Research on conventional farming showed a fluctuating pattern, peaking in 2021 and 2022 with five publications each year before declining slightly. Organic farming research also fluctuated, reaching its highest annual output of eight publications in 2022. Natural farming research, by contrast, emerged much more recently, with little or no output in earlier years but a marked surge in 2023 and 2024. This temporal pattern, the authors note, reflects a progressive shift in research attention toward farming systems that emphasize soil biological functioning, resource conservation, and climate-related outcomes, even though the evidence base for natural farming remains considerably smaller and younger than that for its conventional and organic counterparts.

Geography matters too. Conventional farming research was concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia, with the United States leading at 213 publications, followed by Germany with 203, France with 153, Italy with 147, China with 144, India with 125, Spain with 117, and Brazil with 97. Organic farming research was more decentralized, with France, Germany, and the United States at the top, and contributions spread across every inhabited continent. Natural farming research, however, was strikingly concentrated: India produced 69 of the publications, far exceeding the United States at 22, England at 16, China at 14, and Japan at 10. The authors caution that publication volume measures research productivity rather than scientific impact, but the pattern highlights how strongly natural farming scholarship remains tied to the region where practices such as Zero Budget Natural Farming originated.

Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed three thematic clusters for each farming system, and the differences are revealing. For conventional farming, the clusters linked microbial activity and biodiversity with agricultural practices such as fertilizer use, residue management, and greenhouse gas emissions; connected soil properties with microbial biomass and enzyme activities; and tied microbial activity to climate themes including carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide. Organic farming research clustered around soil organic carbon, minimum tillage, and residue management; around microbial diversity, compost, manure, and community composition; and around soil fertility, dehydrogenase activity, legumes, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Natural farming research, meanwhile, was distinguished by the prominence of terms such as Jeevamritha and Beejamrit, the traditional cattle-based biological inputs at the heart of the practice, alongside clusters on microbial networks, soil health, reduced tillage, carbon pools, mulching, and sustainable soil management.

To move beyond keyword maps, the researchers synthesized 21 highly cited experimental studies on soil microbial dynamics, seven for each farming system. Fourteen of these were published between 2019 and 2024, underscoring the field’s recent momentum. The evidence that emerged was consistent in direction: conventional farming, with its intensive tillage, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides, was repeatedly associated with reduced microbial diversity, lower fungal-to-bacterial ratios, diminished microbial biomass carbon, reduced enzyme activities, and declining soil organic carbon. Crop residue burning emerged as particularly damaging, raising soil temperatures and depleting organic matter, while long-term inorganic nitrogen use was linked to soil acidification and disrupted nutrient cycling. In one comparative study, microbial activity under organic management increased by 61.4 percent for cluster bean and 62.0 percent for tomato during flowering, while natural farming yielded increases of 41.0 and 43.8 percent over standard practices, with organic conditions showing the highest microbial diversity and natural farming second-best.

Organic and natural farming systems, by contrast, generally supported richer and more active soil communities. Organic practices such as green manures, farmyard manure, vermicompost, diverse rotations, and reduced tillage were associated with greater bacterial and fungal diversity, higher enzymatic activity, increased microbial biomass carbon, and enhanced carbon sequestration. Reduced tillage in particular increased the abundance of Glomeromycota, ecologically important fungi that form symbioses with crop roots. Natural farming studies reported greater abundance of saprotrophic fungi and of bacteria involved in carbon and nitrogen cycling, higher microbial network complexity, and more nitrogen-fixing and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, potentially because the absence of chemical inputs removes stresses that suppress beneficial organisms. Long-term naturally farmed orchards showed greater abundance of beneficial fungal species and nitrogen-cycling bacteria than conventional counterparts.

The greenhouse gas picture is more nuanced. Drawing on 15 highly cited experimental studies, five per system, the synthesis found that conventional agriculture contributes substantially to emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide through intensive nitrogen fertilization, tillage, residue burning, and irrigation. In India, emissions from crop residue burning rose from 19.34 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent annually in 2011 to 33.83 teragrams in 2020, an increase of nearly 75 percent, averaging roughly 1.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per hectare per year. Globally, residue burning releases about 176 teragrams of carbon dioxide, 314 gigagrams of methane, and 8 gigagrams of nitrous oxide each year, adding roughly 30 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent annually when non-carbon dioxide gases are converted using standard warming potentials.

Organic farming generally showed lower emissions than conventional management, but with important exceptions. One analysis found that organic systems reduced nitrous oxide emissions per hectare by 40.2 percent compared with nonorganic systems, and organic rotations typically produced fewer nitrous oxide emissions than conventional ones. Yet rice cultivation stands out as a significant caveat: methane emissions from organic rice paddies were sometimes equivalent to or substantially greater than those from conventional paddies, and organic rice systems showed lower carbon efficiency ratios and higher greenhouse gas intensities in some studies. Co-applying biochar with the aquatic fern Azolla, however, improved soil properties and reduced yield-equivalent methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Natural farming studies reported lower methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide equivalent emissions than both conventional and organic methods, with Zero Budget Natural Farming linked to increased microbial diversity and nutrient cycling, but the authors urge caution because this evidence base is recent and geographically concentrated.

The overarching message is that sustainable agriculture cannot be judged by a single metric. Soil microbial processes appear to be a crucial biological link connecting farming practices to carbon dynamics, nutrient cycling, and greenhouse gas fluxes, but the magnitude and even the direction of these effects depend on crop type, soil properties, water regime, climate, and management duration. The authors identify clear research gaps: long-term experiments that simultaneously measure microbial diversity, soil organic carbon, greenhouse gas fluxes, and crop productivity remain scarce; natural farming needs independent, long-term field trials across diverse agro-climatic regions; and rice systems demand particular attention because methane and nitrous oxide respond differently to management. Future work, they argue, should integrate environmental performance with yield and economic viability, so that farming systems can be designed to enhance soil health, curb emissions, and sustain food production all at once.

Subject of Research: Comparative effects of conventional, organic, and natural farming systems on soil microbiomes and greenhouse gas emissions

Article Title: Mapping global research on interactions of conventional, organic, and natural farming systems and soil health with respect to microbiomes and greenhouse gas emissions

Article References: Kalonia, N., Grover, D., Mishra, A. K., & Singh, R. (2026). Mapping global research on interactions of conventional, organic, and natural farming systems and soil health with respect to microbiomes and greenhouse gas emissions. Discover Soil, 3(1), Article 165. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44378-026-00324-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44378-026-00324-8

Keywords: bibliometric analysis, conventional farming, organic farming, natural farming, soil microbiome, soil health, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration, nitrous oxide, methane, sustainable agriculture, VOSviewer