OUR APPROACH
Enabling agroecological transformation at scale through landscapes.
CAT’s strategy is centred on demonstrating that a holistic, place-based, and systems-oriented agroecological approach at the landscape level – the minimum viable unit for lasting transformation – is the most critical missing link in India’s current agricultural transition efforts.
Rather than promoting isolated practices or projects, CAT focuses on enabling coordinated change across entire landscapes, addressing ecological, social, institutional, and financial dimensions together. This approach recognises that agroecology can only be sustained at scale when farmers, institutions, markets, and finance move in alignment within a defined geography.
What is a landscape? A landscape here typically corresponding to an area of approximately 50,000 hectares, or 100,000 people, or an administrative unit such as a block (or its subsection) in India. This scale allows for the aggregation and emergence of viable local economies, effective governance, and sustained provisioning of services to communities.
Agroecological Principles in Practice
Translating principles into coordinated action.
CAT’s landscape-level planning explicitly accounts for actions that amplify and integrate the 13 agroecological principles, ensuring that agroecology is advanced not as a checklist of practices, but as a coherent and context-sensitive system.
The Landscape Framework
Coordinating action across interconnected systems.
CAT’s landscape approach is anchored in a systems framework that identifies the key elements required for agroecological transformation. Transformation depends not on individual interventions, but on how these elements interact and reinforce one another over time.
Change emerges through coordinated action within landscapes — across farming systems, institutions, and livelihoods—and across landscapes, through shared learning and the diffusion of knowledge across diverse contexts. This requires multiple stakeholders to align their efforts across interconnected parts of the system.
Goals of Transformation
What CAT seeks to enable through landscape-scale agroecology.
Through its integrated, landscape-based approach, CAT seeks to enable agroecological transformations that:
Improve the quality of natural resources, including soil, water, flora and fauna.
Increase farm incomes and make agriculture a viable and attractive livelihood, particularly for youth
Improve the quality of natural resources, including soil, water, flora and fauna.
Contribute meaningfully to climate mitigation and adaptation
Our Levers for Change
Supporting community-led adoption through aligned systems.
Reorienting Policy
Creating enabling environments for agroecology.
Building Markets
Strengthening value realisation and demand.
Mobilising Transformation Finance
Aligning capital with long-term transitions.
Our Landscapes
Working across landscapes with deep, on-ground partnerships.
Why these landscapes
CAT’s work is anchored in landscapes where agroecological transitions are already taking root. These are geographies with deeply embedded civil society partners, visible histories of agroecology-oriented practice, and strong community motivation to strengthen and scale this work. Across these landscapes, there is also a growing willingness within government systems to support agroecological approaches through programmes and convergence. Together, these conditions provide a strong foundation for coordinated, landscape-level action, while the diversity of contexts ensures learning and adaptation remain central to the work.
Where CAT is working
CAT is currently focused on 11 landscapes in 11 states, working closely with anchor partners embedded in each geography. These landscapes span diverse agroecological, social, and institutional contexts and together form CAT’s platform for coordinated implementation, learning, and system strengthening.
What this enables at scale
Collectively, the current CAT landscapes are expected to:
Directly influence approximately
Directly influence approximately
Benefit around
How CAT plans for landscape-level transformation
Within each demonstration landscape, CAT supports the development of a landscape-based investment plan that serves as a shared blueprint for coordinated action.
