Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) recently received the 2026 Food Planet Prize for their role in leading one of the world’s largest agroecology projects. The award will help the organization scale sustainable practices to the 6 million farmers in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and beyond.
The Food Planet Prize, the world’s largest environmental award of US$1.5 million, recognizes successful projects working at the intersection of food and agriculture systems and climate.
This year, the committee recognized APCNF for demonstrating “how nature-positive farming can be implemented across entire communities and regions, providing a scalable pathway for millions of farmers while simultaneously improving livelihoods, resilience, and environmental outcomes,” says Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, Co-Chair of the Food Planet Prize jury.
APCNF—led by the nonprofit Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS), which translates to the Farmer Empowerment Organisation—began with 40,000 smallholder farmers in 2016. Over the last decade, it has grown to reach 1.8 million producers.
Under the program, farmers learn how to use locally available biological resources, diversify crops, and introduce natural soil-enrichment techniques. Those who become experts in these practices, known as master farmers, take on the role of teachers in their communities. Each is responsible for offering training and guidance to 100–150 neighboring producers.
At the center of this program are women, who make up over 60 percent of the master farmers in APCNF’s network. “They are the heroes of our work,” Vijay Kumar Thallam, Executive Vice Chair of RySS, tells Food Tank. “Women have played such a critical role as people who are experimenting because it’s not a top-down approach.”
Thallam sees every farmer as a scientist, adding to the knowledge pool, helping to refine innovations, determining what strategies work, and where. “That’s the beauty of this,” he says.
But the transition isn’t without uncertainty, and Thallam feels immense gratitude to everyone who puts their trust in natural farming. Without deep resources to fall back on, farmers are putting their livelihoods on the line. “It’s a very big risk when they shift.”
Fortunately, their work is paying off. “The poorest farmers believed in us,” Thallam tells Food Tank. “They experimented in this, they found success, they expanded the area, and inspired others.”
In Andhra Pradesh, natural farming plots have grown more resilient to extreme weather patterns—something that will become particularly important this year during El Niño. The approach is also scaling to other countries, including Zambia, Sri Lanka, and Brazil.
“What we are doing is very simple but very profound,” Thallam tells Food Tank. ”It’s something anybody can do anywhere in the world.”
Watch the full conversation with Vijay Kumar Thallam on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear more about the journey farmers take with APCNF, why chemical-based agriculture is built on the wrong science, and plans to bring natural farming to more producers around the world.
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Photo courtesy of Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming
