MATI Releases "El Niño: Voices of the Farmers"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MATI Releases "El Niño: Voices of the Farmers," First-Hand Accounts from Smallholder Farmers in India and Zambia on El Niño and the 2026 Harvest
Published during Climate Week NYC and the United Nations General Assembly, the report records what farmers saw in their fields this season and how they are preparing as a very strong El Niño builds into 2027
NEW YORK, September 23, 2026
MATI today released El Niño: Voices of the Farmers, a field report available at el-nino.maticarbon.com, gathering first-hand accounts from smallholder farmers in India and Zambia on how the 2026 growing season unfolded under a strengthening El Niño. The report is published during Climate Week NYC and the high-level week of the United Nations General Assembly, where the effect of climate disruption on food systems is a central topic, and where the farmers most exposed to it are rarely heard directly.
In September 2026, as forecasters upgraded the current El Niño to very strong, MATI asked farmers in both countries three questions: what changed in the weather this year, what it did to the farm and the family, and what they expect next year. The report carries each farmer's answers, in Hindi, English or Chitonga, with the recordings where they survive and a photograph taken at the interview. These are individual accounts rather than a survey, and they do not all agree with one another. MATI has published them as given.
"Farmers are the first to see what a changing climate does to a harvest, and they are the last to be asked about it," said Shantanu Agarwal, CEO of MATI. "This El Niño has not yet reached its peak, and farmers in India are already describing a season that cost them money before it cost them yield. We are publishing their accounts so that the people meeting in New York this week can hear directly from the people whose livelihoods are on the line."
El Niño, and why 2027 matters
El Niño is a periodic warming of the central and eastern Pacific that shifts rainfall patterns across much of the world. Its historical signature in the two regions covered by the report is well documented: a weaker and less reliable Indian summer monsoon, and dry conditions across southern Africa during the main rains on which Zambian maize depends. In its September 10, 2026 update, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center gave a greater than 90 percent chance of a very strong event through autumn and winter, and a 75 percent chance that October to December runs stronger than any El Niño on record back to 1950. Forecasters expect it to keep building through the end of 2026 and run into 2027. What the farmers in this report describe what happened under an El Niño that was still strengthening. The season they are preparing for is the one ahead.
India: the late monsoon raised farmers' costs before the harvest came in
India's rainfall was below normal this year. The India Meteorological Department recorded 603.7 mm of rain between June 1 and August 31 against a normal of 700.7 mm, 14 percent below normal, and by August 25, 348 of the country's 741 districts were below normal. On September 11, the Ministry of Agriculture counted 426.81 lakh hectares of paddy planted against 443.78 lakh hectares at the same point last year, a drop of 4 percent.
Most farmers in the report describe a monsoon that came late and then came irregularly. Yogeshwar Pratap Singh, who farms in Amadand in Chhattisgarh, described the delay as about ten days against last year and attributed it to El Niño, which he had heard about on
the news. Krishna Rai, in Patharia, ran irrigation in order to transplant paddy at all. What follows a late monsoon is not only a smaller harvest. Farmers describe extra irrigation to establish the crop, fertiliser and pesticide windows that opened and closed within a week, a stem borer outbreak in the late-transplanted crop, and a chemical bill that no one had budgeted for. Labour and tractor rates rose as every farmer in the district needed them in the same narrow window, and Krishna Rai and Laxman Turi, in Barakendua, both named those costs directly.
Farmers also describe what the season did at home. Yogeshwar Pratap Singh said a heat wave cost him his health and, with it, part of his income. Prashanta Mondal, in Padampur, said labourers who could normally weed for four or five hours were exhausted within two or three. Birbal Soren in Tetulia, Rakesh Kumar Baghde in Ugdewada and Laxman Turi all reported colds and fever in the family as temperatures changed.
"When it should rain it does not, and when it should not, it does," said Rakesh Kumar Baghde, speaking in Hindi.
The report's central finding for India is that a farmer can lose money in a season the yield figures call average.
The accounts also show how local the effects were. Within one cluster of villages lying within about 90 km of each other on the Jharkhand and West Bengal border, Asaman Hansda in Phulpahari and Wakil Soren in Samlapur report a good crop and no pest damage, while Pravakar Mondal in Gulalgachhi reports disease in the paddy and rain damage to other crops, and Patharia also reports trouble. Every farmer in the cluster has MATI's rock dust, and the survey recorded no rainfall by village, so the report does not try to explain the difference.
Zambia: a good 2025/26 harvest, and an official forecast of below-normal rain ahead
In Zambia, the same three questions found a more bountiful harvest. Farmers in Mukuni, in Southern Province outside Livingstone, plant into main rains that arrive from November, so they were describing the season behind them and the one they are about to plant into. Dominic Nyambe and Veronica Mukuni both contrasted a 2024/25 season that had too little rain with a 2025/26 season that had enough, and Martin Mushabati and Francisca Monde Liyungu Siloka described a good harvest as a result. Dominic Nyambe qualified that: the rain was adequate but at times excessive, and waterlogging cost him part of his crop, though the overall harvest was satisfactory.
For these farmers El Niño is still a forecast rather than a season. Dominic Nyambe cited the Zambia Meteorological Department's forecast of below-normal rainfall in parts of Southern Province for the coming season, while noting that conditions can change as the season progresses. Martin Mushabati expects adequate rain. Veronica Mukuni does not know what to expect.
The official forecasts support the concern. The Southern African Development Community's seasonal outlook for the 2026/27 rains favours drier than normal conditions across much of the region, and identifies Zambia as at risk of below-normal rainfall in the first quarter of 2027.
What farmers expect next
Asked about next year, almost no one in India named rain. They named heat, and they named groundwater. "Where the water stood at 40 feet it has gone to 70 or 80 feet," said Yogeshwar Pratap Singh, speaking in Hindi. Deepak Kumar, in Jhirnapodi, has no tubewell and expects water to arrive late. Naiki Hansda, in Phulpahari, has already decided what to do: if next year looks like less rain, the farm will grow maize or millets instead.
About the farmers in the report
Every farmer in the report works with MATI, which means MATI has spread natural rock dust on their fields at no cost to them.
About MATI
MATI raises farmer incomes by removing carbon. Today, MATI works in seven countries to spread natural rock dust on the fields of farmers. This raises crop yields, corrects soil acidity, releases nutrients, and delivers durable carbon removal through the process of enhanced rock weathering. Carbon revenue funds the entire operation, so farmers pay nothing. For this work, MATI won the $50M XPRIZE Carbon Removal Grand Prize. https://mati.earth/
Notes to editors
The report: El Niño: Voices of the Farmers is published at
el-nino.maticarbon.com. It carries each farmer's answers to the three questions, in the language they were given, with an English translation, the recordings where they survive, a photograph taken at the interview, and the village and location of each interview. Interviews were conducted in September 2026 in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and the villages on the Jharkhand and West Bengal border in India, and in Mukuni, Southern Province, Zambia.
Interviews: farmers in the report are available for interviews. Translation from Hindi and Chitonga is available.
Media contact
pr@maticarbon.com