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# 2026 Food Planet Prize awarded to southern Indian natural farming collective
- URL: https://brain-food.ghost.io/2026-food-planet-prize-goes-to-southern-indian-natural-farming-collective-2/
- Published: 2026-06-03T15:04:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-03T13:27:56.000Z
- Author: Adèle Sulcas
- Tags: #Migrated-1793712467887, #sqs, #Import 2026-11-03 13:27

![APCNF 2026 Food Planet Prize winner](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/b0/51b0eb27-6625-40fb-b9db-73577f47bd12/content/images/2026/11/planet-prize-winners-2026-2c-represented-by-apcnf-executive-vice-chairman-vijay-kumar-thallam-and-his-wife-pushpa-and-rajsekhar-budithi-2c-special-chief-secretary-to-government-of-andhra-pradesh-2c-agriculture--26-allied-department-format-original.png)

*Food Planet Prize Winners 2026, represented by APCNF Executive Vice Chairman Vijay Kumar Thallam and his wife Pushpa and Rajsekhar Budithi, Special Chief Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh, Agriculture & Allied Departments; with the Food Planet Prize jury co-chairs, Magnus Nilsson (right), organic apple farmer and Director-General of the Curt Bergfors Foundation; and Lindiwe Majele Sibanda (left), Extra-Ordinary Professor, University of Pretoria.*

June 3, 2026 – A southern Indian, women-led community initiative that is moving almost two million smallholder farmers to “natural’ farming practices, the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming organization (APCNF), has just won the world’s largest environmental award, the 2026 Food Planet Prize, and been awarded $1.5 million.

Vijay Kumar Thallam, APCNF’s Executive Vice Chairman, said on receiving the prize: “APCNF is honored to receive the 2026 Food Planet Prize on behalf of 1.8 million farm families, 700,000 farmworker families, and the 340,000 women’s self-help groups driving this transformation. We accept this award for farmers across India who are showing the world a climate-resilient, nature-positive pathway, and we thank the scientists.”

The 2026 Food Planet Prize, created by the Sweden-based Curt Bergfors Foundation, was presented in Båstad, Sweden, on June 2\. The prize recognizes initiatives with the potential to drive large-scale transformation of the global food system, to reduce its environmental impact. This year four semi-finalists were selected from more than 1000 entries.

The three other semi-finalists – Conscious Kitchen (United States), NoPalm Ingredients (Netherlands) and Savanna Institute (United States) each received a $150,000 award in recognition of their work.

**What this win means for food systems transformation**

In the ten years since the creation of APCNF, launched by the government of Andhra Pradesh, 1.8 million farmers in southern India have joined what the foundation calls “one of the world’s largest transitions to natural agriculture”. The initiative works through women’s collectives a network of more than 10,000 farmer trainers, who support the smallholder farmers – across more than 8,000 villages - adopt natural farming practices based in soil science and traditional knowledge and abandon synthetic inputs.

The jury for the 2026 Food Planet Prize was co-chaired by Zimbabwean Professor Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, who said, “APCNF demonstrates 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.”

APCNF’s Thallam said, “This recognition strengthens our resolve to scale natural farming to all 6 million farmers in Andhra Pradesh.”   
  
And hopefully beyond.