Lessons from a 74-year-old farmer who switched to organic sugarcane farming

Extreme weather events have made farming difficult in the Kolhapur district in Maharashtra. While chemical fertilisers have given crop yield, their indiscriminate use has rapidly increased soil salinity.

Troubled by extreme weather events and high soil salinity, Narayan Gaikwad began experiments with organic sugarcane farming, one of the chief crops in the region. Editor Sahana Ghosh and I worked with photographer Sanket Jain, who visited Narayan over multiple seasons to document the transition's highs and lows and Narayan’s resilience.