The sun beats down on Manoj Kumar Kushwaha’s small plot in East Champaran, Bihar. For years, his ritual was straightforward: at sowing time, he would scatter bag after bag of urea across his rice and wheat fields.
He’d apply a hefty 2.5 kilograms of fertiliser per kattha (a local land measure) — a measurement of dose passed down through generations and reinforced by fear. It was an act of faith — faith that more fertiliser meant more grain, and fear that without it, the increasingly fickle rains and baking heat would steal his harvest. The cost was crippling, but it was the insurance premium he thought he had to pay.
A thousand kilometres away, in a conference room in New Delhi, scientists and strategists at the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) were focused on a different set of numbers. They saw India’s staggering Rs 2 lakh crore annual fertiliser subsidy. They observed that agriculture accounted for 20% of the nation’s greenhouse gases, with nitrogen overuse being a primary contributor. They saw the silent yet potent leak of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, rising from fields like Manoj’s.
But Hisham Mundol, EDF’s Climate Advisor, saw a connection others missed. “Farmers are on the front lines of climate change,” he explains. “They use fertiliser as an insurance policy.” The problem wasn’t carelessness; it was a rational response to a climate of deep uncertainty.
The solution, therefore, couldn’t be a ban or a blame. It had to be a better form of insurance — one that saved money, secured yields, and protected the planet. This became EDF’s non-negotiable “triple win”.
This is the story of how that philosophy took root, beginning with a pilot in 2023, spreading to 50,000 farmers across three states by 2024, and sparking a quiet revolution in measurement and trust.
The unseen algorithm in the soil
In the world of agronomy, there is a concept called the “N Balance”. It is the precise calculation between the nitrogen a crop needs and the nitrogen a farmer applies. In India, this balance has been tipped disastrously towards excess.
“Three out of four farmers in Bihar are over-applying nitrogen,” says Ajeet Singh, EDF’s Manager for Climate-Smart Agriculture with over two decades of grassroots experience. The consequences are a cascade of loss: financial loss for the farmer, ecological loss for the soil and water, and a profound cost for the climate.
“Farmers are on the front lines of climate change and they use fertiliser as an insurance policy,” explains Hisham Mundol, EDF’s Climate Advisor
EDF’s intervention, spearheaded by experts like Samir Mirza, an agricultural engineer on the ground in Maharashtra, began with a simple survey in 2023. Across 20,000 farmers in the states of Maharashtra, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu, they asked 13 straightforward questions: plot size, typical yield, type and amount of fertiliser used. They also collaborate with NGOs such as PRADAN and SSEVS, as well as agribusinesses like ITC and Shakti Sugar, and academic institutions like Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth in Akola.
“We calculate the nitrogen balance and based on that, we do provide advisories to individual farmers on what amount of fertiliser they need to reduce gradually,” Samir explains. For a farmer like Manoj, that meant a careful, step-by-step reduction from his habitual 2.5 kg per kattha.
N-Balance is currently active across Maharashtra, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu, using these partnerships to reach scale.
The science was sound, but it remained confined to reports and datasets. The real challenge lay in engaging people and changing behaviour. “We do not throw any new technology at the farmer,” Ajeet emphasises. “Farmers are willing to adopt climate-smart technology, but they need to trust the source of information.”
Trust, in rural India, is not built by apps alone. It is built by the person who looks you in the eye, who shares your village, and whose own livelihood is tied to your success.
The bridge builders
This is where the model makes its ingenious turn. Instead of relying solely on a strained government extension system, EDF helped cultivate a new local force: the Climate Smart Entrepreneur (CSE).
Meet Somnath from Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra. A young man who once ran an online computer tutoring business but saw it collapse during the pandemic. Seeking a new path, he joined EDF’s entrepreneur programme in 2024.
He started by offering digital banking services, saving his village’s 600–700 families a 10-kilometre trip for cash. He became a crop trader, promising immediate payment in an industry of delayed settlements. He was a trusted face.
N-Balance intervention is currently active across Maharashtra, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu.
Then, he was given a new tool: knowledge. “I didn’t know how to do climate-smart agriculture,” Somnath admits. “In the training, we were told about N Balance, how to calculate it, how to convey it to farmers, and help them.”
The training transformed him from a service provider into a knowledge partner. Armed with a printed advisory pamphlet generated by EDF’s system for each farmer, he would walk into the fields. “My relationship with the farmers has improved a lot,” he says. “I go to their fields… I share this knowledge. So, the farmer is automatically connected to me.” This connection became the capillary system through which complex climate science flowed.
Samir Mirza, who helps oversee this network, explains the sustainable logic. “We train around 2,000 entrepreneurs in Maharashtra and across India; we cover around 8,000 agricultural entrepreneurs.” The goal is to reach 6,000 in Maharashtra alone in the coming years. “If the farmers did better, the AEs [Agriculture Entrepreneurs] would do better. Their business is linked to the farmer’s success.”
Somnath’s credibility grew, farmers sold their produce to him, and they listened when he advised them to change lifelong habits. It was a virtuous cycle engineered around trust.
A ledger of change
The final, most crucial node in this network is the farmer. This is where the data and the diplomacy are put to the test. Manoj Kumar Kushwaha in Bihar is the test. He joined the programme at its start in 2023, and after two cropping cycles, his results are telling.
“We used to spend a lot of money,” Manoj says, reflecting on his fertiliser bills. When his local service provider — his “teacher”, as he calls them — advised him to cut back, he was cautious. “The teacher told me to reduce the amount of fertilisers little by little. Gradually.”
He followed the tailored advisory, a simple pamphlet that broke down the recommendations for his specific plot. “I tried according to the instructions, and the result was the same.” The yield held firm. The only thing that fell was his cost.
EDF’s intervention for N Balance began on ground with a simple survey in 2023.
From 2.5 kg, he has been guided to reduce the application significantly to 1 kg and even less if needed. “We got some relief from the cost of fertilisers.” In the precarious economics of smallholder farming, this relief is transformative. It is capital for diversification, a buffer against the next shock, a chance to breathe.
His experience shatters the myth that farmers are resistant to change. They are resistant to risk. When given credible, personalised evidence that reduces their risk and their costs, they become the most effective agents of change. “Farmers are now discussing their N Balance scores with each other,” Samir notes with enthusiasm, describing a new culture of peer learning emerging in villages.
The data that can redraw the map
The work that began in 2023 with Manoj, Somnath, and now 50,000 farmers is generating something perhaps as valuable as the immediate savings: a massive, granular dataset. “This data will help us to design customised advisories to the farmers at a larger scale,” Samir explains.
This is the scaling vision for the programme’s next phase. The three-year trial, set to conclude after the 2025 cycle, aims to refine the N Balance algorithm so precisely that it can be plugged into any existing agricultural digital platform in the country. “It could optimise fertiliser for the farmers and provide tailored advisories in terms of fertiliser,” Samir says, imagining a future where this precise tool is as common as a weather app.
The implications ripple upward. This data can help district administrations budget fertiliser subsidies more accurately, saving public funds. It provides incontrovertible evidence for policymakers on what works. It turns the abstract concept of “emissions reduction” into millions of individual, profitable decisions — like Manoj’s careful reduction to a more optimal measure.
At EDF, their interventions is guided by three principles: science, equity, and economics.
Hisham Mundol sees this as the cornerstone of the future. “I will say digital soil health,” he states, when asked about the most urgent local action. “Unless we can get an accurate assessment of the health of soil at a plot-by-plot level and can give with confidence recommendations to a farmer… we’re never going to address the agriculture issue.”
Building India’s climate talent pipeline
Another piece of EDF’s long-term strategy is investing in people.
Through the Climate Corps Fellowship, run with Ashoka University, EDF places trained postgraduate students within companies and government departments to work on real climate challenges.
“There’s a massive talent gap in climate action,” Hisham says. “And there’s no shortage of young people who want to work on this.”
Fellows have worked with organisations ranging from the Maharashtra government to municipal bodies and companies like Tata Steel, Mahindra, Amazon, and Zomato.
“They don’t do theory,” Samir says. “They deliver actionable projects.”
Sowing a new future
The narrative of climate action in agriculture is often one of sacrifice — of doing less, of bearing loss. The EDF model flips that script. It is a story of doing smarter.
At EDF, that purpose is guided by three principles: science, equity, and economics. None, Hisham insists, can stand alone.
“Science tells us what needs to change,” he says. “Equity tells us who must not be left behind. And economics tells us whether something will last.”
Take away any one of the three, he believes, and climate action collapses. “If it hurts incomes, farmers won’t adopt it. If it ignores science, it won’t work. And if it isn’t equitable, it won’t scale.”
This is why EDF’s interventions rarely look dramatic. They don’t ask farmers to abandon fertilisers overnight, fishers to stop fishing, or entrepreneurs to chase idealism without income. Instead, they focus on better decisions, supported by evidence and rooted in lived realities.
At the heart of this approach lies data — but not the kind that stays locked in reports.
“Data only matters if people trust it,” Hisham says. “And people trust data when it reflects what they see on their fields, in their animals, in their catch.”
For Indian agriculture, he believes the next frontier is clear. “We need granular, plot-level soil and climate data that farmers can actually use. Without that, advice will always feel generic.”
Back in Bihar, Manoj Kumar Kushwaha may not talk in terms of emissions or nitrogen cycles. But he knows what has changed. His fertiliser costs are lower. His yields are stable. And for the first time in years, uncertainty doesn’t automatically mean fear.
All images from the Environmental Defense Fund team.
