By Francesca Merlo
Amidst the rampant environmental degradation and undeniable economic inequality that ravage our world, the global movement to regenerate the soil and farmers’ livelihoods is bringing new life and new hope.
In fact, soil is at the forefront of a revolution grounded in nature, as it was before greed and chemicals began changing things for the worst. From the Brazilian Amazon to the valleys of Andhra Pradesh; from the Zambian plains to the villages of Sri Lanka, farmers and foresters are using groundbreaking agroecological innovations to regeenrate the soil and with it a more secure, sustainable and prosperous future for themselves and the planet.
This is the vision of NOW Partners Foundation (NOW), a global partnership specialized in co-developing, adapting and scaling innovation approaches that integrate positive impact on people and planet with economic success. NOW Partners is dedicated to sustainably implementing agroecology across the globe. Walter Link chairs NOW. “Together with our partners, we demonstrate that a new mainstream of agriculture is possible,” Link tells Vatican News, not as a dream but as a data-backed reality. “The highly innovative agroecology methods we are working with,” he says, “are not only better for the earth, but significantly increase the income of farmers. These adaptive and scalable methods regenerate the soil, enhance biodiversity, and resolve our dependency on chemical farming inputs that are costly and have many negative side effects.”
A hands-on approach
Agroecology, as NOW practises and promotes it, is not a nostalgic return to ‘how things were’. It is innovative, scientific, high-yield, high-impact, and deeply human- and nature-centred. The Foundation, in fact, is pivotal in the international scaling of the incredibly successful Andhra Pradesh Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) that outperforms chemical farming in diverse crops, geographies and climates.
In Andhra Pradesh, APCNF has opened up a new future for already more than one million farmers, significantly increasing the quantity and diversity of their incomes. By 2030, over 65% of all farmers in Andhra Pradesh will use APCNF, demonstrating that agroecology can become the new mainstream of agriculture in a state that is larger than Italy. NOW and APCNF combine their strengths to adapt and scale the method internationally. Their respectful adaptation approach does not mean mere replication. It requires listening to farmers and communities and adapting to diverse natural conditions and human cultures.
Fertile ground in all senses
In Brazil, too, NOW has found fertile ground (in all senses) as the country is emerging as a role model of sustainable development. Paulo Teixeira, the Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Farming, who work closely with NOW, tells Vatican News that Brazil is undergoing a “very auspicious moment for agriculture.” The country has not only launched a national harvest plan, he explains, but has significantly reduced deforestation, introduced a bold programme to phase out chemical pesticides, and invested in reforestation through agroforestry and supports the transition of family farmers to agroecology.
Teixeira describes these initiatives as a “path centred in the territories and the communities,” explicitly recognising the vital role of Indigenous peoples, Quilombola (Afro-Brazilian) communities, and family farmers. In Brazil, where the culture is so diverse, agriculture serves not only as an economic driver. It supports communities who have long been underrepresented in decision-making and lack access to resources.
As Walter Link notes, Paulo Teixeira’s new agricultural ethos and innovative policies put into action Laudato Si’ – Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care for our common home. “The methods NOW is scaling together with the ministry and other stakeholders, whether its India’s APCNF or Brazil’s SAF Dende, are in full alignment with Laudato Si’,” Link affirms. “It’s about healing the Earth and healing its communities while also strengthening local economies and farming incomes”.
More than just oil
Brazil’s partnership with NOW touches on many issues. In the Amazon, the Foundation is partnering to expand SAF Dende, a regenerative palm oil methodology developed by Natura (Latin America’s largest cosmetics company) in collaboration with Embrapa (the country’s national agricultural research body) and C.A.M.T.A. a cooperative, founded 100 years ago by Japanese immigrants. Unlike conventional palm oil, now a symbol of ecological devastation, this SAF Dende increases palm oil yields by 40% while regenerating the soil and sustaining local communities. It is integrated with other cash crops such as cacao and açaí, diverse fruits and vegetables in multicropping systems, forming a powerful web of resilience – ecological, economic, and social, Walter Link explains.
But the work being done goes beyond the field. Link underscores the importance of “value addition” . This means not only helping farmers to grow food, but to then transform it into next level products from cosmetic ingrediencies to cleaned and packaged produce, which can be sold to Brazil’s free meals program for schools and hospitals that already prioritises agroecological food sources. In certain southern states of Brazil agroecological products make up close to 100% of school meals. But in the Amazon, that number is only 15%. “The challenge is not the agricultural produce supply,” Link explains, “it’s the capacity to add value, in this case to clean, cut, package, and deliver the food.”
To help bridge this divide, NOW Partners has launched Global Academy in collaboration with the Brazilian government and other Brazilian and international partners to provide diverse types of training in Brazil and other countries – equipping farmers with skills across the entire production and value chain, from cultivation to entrepreneurship and management training.
Link explains that the academy is a space not only of learning and co-innovation but for concrete action that addresses some of our most important social and environmental challenges and opportunities. In the world, many of the over 600 million smallholder farmers struggle for survival. Many are forced off their land due to soil degradation, and millions migrate from rural areas to overburdened cities. Agroecology offers a counter-narrative of return, regeneration, and rootedness.
Overcoming resistance
Of course, as with any movement towards justice, agroecology faces resistance – not from nature, but from policy. Across much of the world chemical farming remains heavily subsidised. In some cases, Western countries export pesticides to the Global South that are banned within their own borders. In India, the government pays $27 billion in chemical farming subsidies. The agroecology methods that NOW helps to scale can help to reduce this subsidy burden of governments while improving farming incomes and socio-ecological conditions.
In the face of this context, NOW Partners is building coalitions across continents and sectors. They work with diverse stakeholders, including governments, farmer cooperatives, financial institutions, companies, civil society and religious communities. In Zambia, for instance, NOW partners with the innovation farms of the Salesian sisters and Jesuit brothers, bringing APCNF’s agroecological training to remote villages. “Faith communities are present in most rural areas across the Southern hemisphere,” Link notes. “They are trusted, they are present, and they are committed to serving creation and the whole person – body and soul. We are grateful for our collaboration with such dedicated and capable partners.”
This holistic vision, however, is not merely technical, it is deeply grounded in spirituality. “We must remember,” Link says, “that this work is about more than food. It’s about life.” It is a sacred recognition that how we treat the Earth is how we treat each other.
As Brazil prepares to host COP30, its commitment to agroecology may well place it at the forefront of a global shift. Minister Teixeira hopes that the collaboration with NOW Partners Foundation will not only scale regenerative agriculture within Brazil but also “potentiate exchanges” between countries. “We have much to teach,” he says, “but we also have much to learn.”
In fact, what the multistakeholder programs in Brazil, India, Zambia, and Sri Lanka are modelling is an example of exchange and collaboration, bringing to fruition the very requests made by the late Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si’, as well as in Fratelli tutti, which together call for a more just, humane and collaborative approach to our lives and our world.
Agroecology, in this light, is not just a method but a movement, and one that recognises that regeneration must be local in practice and global in solidarity, that the soil beneath our feet can actually teach us how to tread on the soil that covers our earth and home. – Vatican News
