Disrupting poverty and ensuring soil rejuvenation through a circular Napier-Biofertilizer-Dairy nexus in rural India

This study provides a sustainable Napier-Biofertilizer-Dairy circularity for rural India. Small-scale dairy farming households in rural West Bengal have annual income below the international poverty line. The issue is further exacerbated in central West Bengal, where high chemical fertilizer-use intensity has leached micronutrient from red soils, leading to organic carbon content falling well-below the internationally accepted 2% level to 0.25%. This has increased prices of cattle fodder, leading to dairy farmers incurring losses against current market prices. Through an innovative model that incorporates drought-resistant Napier cultivation (at 14-16% protein content and 33% fiber content), increased organic-matter cow dung-based biofertilizer (>500 million/lit) and higher nutritional-value organic milk, we elucidate how economic upliftment of impoverished farmers can occur. Our findings indicate that biofertilizer-based soil rejuvenation has improved the organic content to 0.95% and projected to increase till 2% within three years, that directly improves yield of Napier (up to 800 tons/acre), Moringa and banana cultivation significantly. Small-scale dairy farmers can profit at least Rs. 25/lit by reducing fodder expenditure, with simultaneous maintenance of public health from adulterant-free organic milk. The demonstrated impacts not only create opportunities for sustainable rural industries, but also has the potential to improve severely degraded soils and simultaneously benefit public and cattle health. The authors confirm that all data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. Furthermore, all publicly available datasets were used as primary data in this article. The corresponding author may be contacted in case of any clarification/discrepancy.