ECOLOGICALLY SOUND,ECONOMICALLY VIABLE

COMMUNITY MANAGED SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

T. Vijay Kumar, and others.. SERP

CMSA approach is currently under scrutiny and observation by many agencies. National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture being set up by Government of India is looking at the CMSA approach as one of the key strategies to be replicated at the national level.  However, mainstream agricultural research and extension institutions and other programs providing subsidies to farmers for usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are still skeptic and more dialogue is needed between the farmers and scientific community practicing sustainable agriculture.
The current dialogue on role of agriculture in adaptation to climate change and reduction of carbon footprint through reduction in usage of chemical fertilizers has also started.

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Water harvesting structures at Mosodih village in the Seraikela- Kharsawan district of Jharkhand have given Lakshman and Sarla stable irrigation and moisture in the soil. They grow enough for themselves and their four children to eat all through the year. The surplus is sold in neighbouring markets. The yield of paddy on their land has been steadily going up and is now 1.2 tonnes.
Small Field, Big Crop
by Rita and Umesh Anand, Civil Society, 01 March, 2009
Long years of neglect have made the revival of agriculture tricky. Farmers need access to creative solutions in dealing with their current burden of problems. This assistance is best provided in the field through specific interventions. It is a slow and complex process in which many actors have to be involved. It means marrying traditional systems with new technologies. But above all it requires a vision of national prosperity linked to ecological balance and well- being in rural areas.
The small farmer
by Umesh Anand, Civil Society, 01 March, 2009
According to activists from Nagpur based organisation YUVA, alternate method of sustainable agriculture offers a way out of the agrarian crisis of Vidarbha where thousand of farmers have committed suicide. An activist associated with the organization Palash Goshal says, an Integrated Natural Sustainable Agricultural Process has helped them successfully combat farmer\'s suicide in over 500 villages of Vidarbha.
Alternate method of farming may save farmers
by SANDRP, Dams, Rivers & People, 01 February, 2009
Agricultural biodiversity is critical to the issue of biodiversity, especially in the present context of globalisation of agriculture that intends to promote genetically modified monocropping as a strategy to enhance productivity in agriculture. The green revolution model of agriculture which started in the 1960s focused on high response varieties of seeds, high external inputs and chemicalisation of agriculture; this resulted in monocrops, destroying the biodiversity in agriculture in the irrigated tracts (Shiva, 1992; Kothari, 1997). However, some pockets of rainfed agriculture, which have not been targeted by this model of agriculture, have still sustained their biodiversity (Pionetti and Reddy, 2002). It is in this context that the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan initiated a study on agro-biodiversity in the Zaheerabad region of Deccan area. The present paper discusses the current status of agro-biodiversity, threats to agro-biodiversity, existing gap and major strategies to fill gaps and measures to be taken for enhancing agro-biodiversity.
Sustenance and Enhancement of Agro-Biodiversity
by B Suresh Reddy, Social Action, 01 January, 2009
This study examines the recent dynamics in the rapidly growing handmade paper industry in Nepal. The paper argues that the industry is sustainable from social responsibility as well as natural resources and economic perspectives. Five principle sources of socially responsible practices are identified: (1) traditional commitment to community development, (2) fair trade codes of conduct, (3) corporate social responsibility, (4) the industry\'s business service organization (Nepal Handmade Paper Association), and (5) the general policy and legal framework. The paper concludes with a discussion of this industry as a case study of ``positive deviance\'\' and with lessons for contemporary innovation systems theory and for development policy and practice. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Social Responsibility in the Growing Hand made Paper Industry of Nepal
by Stephen Biggs and Don Messerschmid, World Development, 18 October, 2005
This paper argues that the interest in rejuvenating the tank irrigation system of south India needs to be supplemented by an alternate paradigm that seeks to combine the technological and the social within the same frame. Important tasks such as desilting of tanks have to continue - to show the possibilities of tank irrigation even in its state of disrepair. However realization of the true potentials of tanks needs a deeper understanding of the tank system and its design principles. The latter has received little attention from engineers; and the descriptions by social scientists and others, though eloquent, have been sketchy with regard to technical details. This paper revisits an exploration into the network of 200 tanks in Kolar, Karnataka where larger questions were examined. Questions such as: what are the limits to modification of the tank system and how does this system respond to ad-hoc changes, what are the rules that govern how and when a tank can be added or removed in the system, how were they designed to minimize silting- in the light of their longevity etc.
Technological and Policy Implications of Tank Systems: Reflections from Tank Irrigation in Kolar District, Karnataka
by Dr. Chitra Krishnan and Dr. C. Shambu Prasad, Xavier Institute of Management, 01 January, 1970
My encounter with the amazing historical work of Dharampal came about in 1976 in a most unexpected place: a library in Holland. I was at that time investigating material for a Ph.D dissertation, part of which dealt with the history of Indian and Chinese science and technology. While there was certainly no dearth of historical material and scholarly books as far as Chinese science and technology were concerned—largely due to the work of Dr Joseph Needham, reflected in his multi-volumed Science and Civilisation in China—in contrast, scholarly work on Indian science and technology seemed to be almost non-existent. What was available seemed rudimentary, poor, unimaginative, wooden, more filled with philosophy and legend than fact.
An introduction to the Collected Writings of Dharampal Preface Making History
by Claude Alvares, , 01 January, 2000
A long-term experiment continuing at ICRISAT, Patancheru, India, since June 1999, on a rainfed Vertisol compares four crop-husbandry systems to determine the yield levels a cash-poor(but knowledge-rich) farmer could harvest by using locally available, low-cost technologies andresources. Two of the four systems are low-cost (LC1 and LC2 or T1, T2). The third (Conventional Agriculture - CA or T3) is a control that receives input types and levels as recommended by research institutions for a given crop in the region, and the fourth (CA+biomass, or T4) receives all chemical inputs as applied to CA and biomass as applied to low-cost system 2 (T2).
Lessons from Nonchemical Input Treatments Based on Scientific and Traditional Knowledge in a Long-term Experiment
by O P Rupela, C L L Gowda, S P Wani, and G V Ranga Rao, ICRISAT, 01 January, 2008
The success and impacts of research projects in agriculture that develop technologies for the resource poor farmers are most often considered in terms of the natural sciences and answer questions such as, how effectively do new interventions increase grain yield and how do they fit into the farming system. In this paper we review research in the context of the innovation system as a whole and examine impacts on institutional arrangements, rather than just on direct impacts of the technologies. We use the case of two participatory research projects in Nepal designed to produce better rice technologies for low-resource farmers. These took place in the context of the Nepal rice innovation system that is comprised of many formal and informal actors. Farmers’ innovations and their seed networks have contributed significantly to this innovation system and the participatory rice improvement projects brought greater recognition of their role. It led to the development and spread of socially-responsible, technical innovations in the rice improvement system and contributed to important policy changes such as changes in the seeds act and institutional innovations. These included the establishment of formal partnerships between non-governmental and governmental organisations and led to the latter changing extension methods to increase role of farmers. However, no project can act alone and, although the two participatory projects contributed to institutional change, apportioning credit to individual actors in complex innovation systems is not possible.
The evolution and spread of socially responsible technical and institutional changes in a rice innovation system in Nepal
by Krishna D Joshi†, Stephen Biggs & Others, , 01 June, 2006
One of the major events for which the twentieth century will be remembered is the demise of colonialism as a process which began with the Boston Tea Party 111 1772 1r1 the United States of America (US) and the subsequent American Declaration of\' Independence in July 1776, and concluded with the defeat of the same US by Vietnam in the 1970s. The basis of colonialism was technological superiority, while the basis of the defeat of colonialism was themoral force behind basic human dignity and human rights which are so well-enshrined in the LIN charter of such rights.
GM Crops and Neocolonialism : An Indian Point of View
by Pushpa M Bhargava, ANVESHNA, 01 January, 1970
My final exemplar is the Gandhian economist J.C. Kumarappa. Born in 1892 in the southern part of the Tamil country, Kumarappa originally trained in accountancy in London. He had a flourishing practice as an auditor in Bombay, which he left to take a masters degree at Columbia University in New York. There he embarked on a study of public finance (under the supervision of E.R.A. Seligman), in the course of which he uncovered the colonial exploitation of the Indian economy.
The Indian Road to Sustainability : Ramachandra Guha 2006: How Much Should A Person Consume? : Thinking Through the Environment
by Ramachandra Guha, Permanent Black, 01 January, 2006
The report begins in Chapter 1 by building the case for an enlarged and reformed watershed programme in India. For the first time since the mid-sixties, the 1990s witnessed a rate of growth of foodgrain production that was lower than the rate of growth of population. While irrigated agriculture appears to be hitting a plateau, dryland farming has suffered neglect. In Chapter 1, we argue that an increased thrust to rainfed areas through greater emphasis on a reformed watershed programme may hold the key to meeting this challenge. Our review shows that the limits to further expansion of surface and groundwater irrigation through big dams and tubewells are being reached rapidly. This makes the urgency of a different strategy for India\'s drylands even greater.
Parthasarathy Report 2 : Action Points
by S. Parthasarathy, Ministry of Rural Development, 26 January, 2006
With impressive macro-economic rates of growth and a booming stock market, India is one of the most exciting economies in the world today. India has reportedly displaced the United States as the second most attractive destination for foreign direct investment in the world after China (Business Standard, 2005,P.1). This spectacular overall performance, however, hides one dark spot that the people of India exposed through Verdict 2004. The benefits of this growth have not been evenly distributed. Large parts of India do not find a place on the development map of the country. In a pioneering study on the Domestic Product of State of India, the Economic and Political Weekly Research Foundation found that many \"low-income and poorly-performing major states have not only persisted with their low-growth syndrome but have also experienced further deceleration in growth rates in the 1990\'s ( EPWRF, 2003, p.26). World Bank economists Datt and Ravallion (2002) find that \" the geographic and sectoral pattern of India\'s growth process had greatly attenuated its aggregate impact on poverty\" (p.1)
National Significance ofthe Watershed Programme : Chapter 1
by S. Parthasarathy, Ministry of Rural Development, 26 January, 2006
  1. NREGA survey 2008
  2. Made it : Enabavi, a village of 52 families, is abuzz. It is hosting farmers from the nearby Kallem village
  3. From Hariyali to Neeranchal:Report of the Technical Committeeon Watershed Programmes in India
  4. Dams and Development: Some Issues Emanating from a Case Study of the Bhakra Nangal Project