ATM agriculture requires imagination

In this agriculture, conventional science is turned upside down

I am standing on a sun-baked landscape, barren and desolate as far as the eye can see. This is Ananthapuramu district in Andhra Pradesh, where rain this year was less than normal and farmers missed the sowing season. But as I look down, I can see signs of crop life bursting. T Vijay Kumar, who heads the state government’s community-managed natural-farming programme called Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, explains that the crops are growing from pelletised seeds — in this method, farmers coat the seeds with materials like cow dung and ash, and then plant them in circles with minimal disturbance to