G.V. Ramanjaneyulu, M.S. Chari, T.A.V.S. Raghunath, Zakir Hussain
and Kavitha Kuruganti
Two decades of experience in Andhra Pradesh on Non Pesticidal Management shows that pest is a symptom of ecological disturbance rather than a cause and can be effectively managed by using local resources and timely action. The small success from few villages was scaled up into more than 1.5 million ha in three years. This experience also shows how the grassroot extension system when managed by the community can bring in change and help the farming community to come out of the crisis.
Farming in India evolved over centuries of farmers’ innovations in identifying locally suitable cropping patterns and production practices. The crisis of food production and geo-political considerations during 1960s created conditions in many developing countries particularly in India to strive for food self-reliance. The country has chosen the path of using high yielding varieties (more appropriately high input responsive varieties) and chemicals which brought about what is popularly known as the Green Revolution. The country could become self reliant for a while, farmers lost self reliance in the process due to excessive dependency on external inputs and are caught in serious ecological and economic crisis.
In midst of the deep crisis in agriculture, farmers and various organizations associated with farmers are trying innovative approaches to sustain agriculture. One such initiative is the “Non Pesticide Management” (NPM) of crop pests to reduce the costs of cultivation by adopting a set of practices. It is based on farmers’ knowledge supplemented by modern science which makes best use of local resources and natural processes by the farmers and women self help groups in Andhra Pradesh.
| Box 1: NPM practices
Seed: Selection and use of good quality seed which is locally adopted either from traditional farmers’ varieties or improved varieties released by the public sector institutions. Farmers decide on the suitability of the different varieties into their cropping patterns, based on the soil types, reaction to insect pests and diseases and their consumption preferences. They maintain the seed in their seed banks. This ensures farmers to go for timely sowing with the seeds of their choice. Stress management: The pest and disease susceptibility increases with abiotic stress. Practices like mulching will improve the soil moisture availability and reduce the stress levels Soil management: Building healthy Soils gives healthy crop. Chemical fertilizers especially nitrogenous fertilizer makes the plants succulent and increases the sucking pests like brown plant hopper Crop diversity: Crop Diversity including trap and border crops is another critical factor which reduces the pest problems. Traditionally, farmers have evolved mixed cropping systems, intercropping and crop rotation systems. Under NPM, farmers adopt mixed and intercropping systems with proper crop rotations. Pest and disease management – Generally, out of the four stages for complete metamorphosis in the four stages of the life cycle, insects damage the crop only in larval stage and in at least two of the stages are immobile [egg and pupa]. Every insect has different behavior and different weaknesses in each of the stage. They can be easily managed if one can understand the lifecycle and their biology. The pest complex and the natural enemy complex are based on the crop ecosystem. Main emphasis is to prevent insect from reaching damaging stage and proportions. If the pest reaches damaging stage, reactive inputs locally made with local resources are used. Insect population may reach pest status if the preventive steps are not taken in time, changes in weather conditions and insects coming from neighboring farmers fields. In these situations based on the field observations farmers can take up spraying botanical extracts and natural preparations (Green sprays) instead of chemical pesticides. There are wide ranges of these preparations which are evolved by the farmers (CSA, 2007). Other Agronomic Practices: Several crop specific agronomic practices like alley ways in rice to allow enough light to reach the bottom of the plant are documented by the farmers and suggested by the scientists (Vyavasaya Panchangam, 2007). |
The “Non Pesticidal Management” which emanates from collaborative work of public institutions, civil society organizations and farmers in Andhra Pradesh shows how diverse players join hands to work in generating new knowledge and practice as a sustainable model of development. Non Pesticidal Management is mainly based on understanding crop ecosystem and suitably modifying it by adopting suitable cropping systems and crop production practices. The type of pests and their behavior differs with crop ecosystems. Similarly the natural enemies’ composition also varies with the cropping systems. In NPM, no chemical pesticides are applied to the crops. For an effective communication to farmers about the concept, and to differentiate from Integrated Pest Management which believes that chemical pesticides can be safely used and are essential as a last resort it is termed as Non Pesticidal Management.
Genesis
In 1988, ASW and EZE organized People’s Science Conference at Bangalore to promote concept of substituting synthetic chemical pesticides by a non-pesticide approach based on locally available resources. This led to a collaborative program for non pesticidal approach for controlling Red Hairy Caterpillar in 1989. Zonal Coordinator, Transfer of Technology (ToT) Unit, ICAR, Hyderabad; Department of Agriculture, ASW, Center for World Solidarity (CWS); OXFAM and village based voluntary organizations were the partners.
In 1994, the Center for World Solidarity organized a workshop in collaboration with National Academy of Agriculture Research Management (NAARM), Hyderabad to bring together initiatives working in NPM across the country. This workshop devolved a joint strategy paper on NPM.
In 1998, CWS organized a second National Workshop on Non Pesticidal Management in collaboration with MANAGE in Hyderabad. The workshop which was attended by eminent scientists and civil society organizations called for expansion and popularizing the concept and practices. In 2004, Punukula, a small village in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh which used to spend about Rs. 4 million annually on chemical pesticides to grow crops like cotton and chillies declared itself as a pesticide free after five years of NPM work. Meanwhile, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture was formed to promote sustainable models in agriculture.
In 2005, in the context of serious crisis in agriculture and farmers suicides, NPM got the attention of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), Government of Andhra Pradesh. SERP which works with Federations of Women Self Help Groups began scaling up NPM by adopting an institutional approach across the state.
Scaling up with SERP
Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) is a registered society under Department of Rural Development implementing the largest poverty alleviation project in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The project understands that sustainable poverty eradication requires the recognition of the poor as active partners in the processes of social change; therefore, all project interventions are demand based and are in response to the proposals conceived and planned by the poor.
SERP works towards empowering the poor to overcome all social, economic, cultural and psychological barriers through self managed institutions of the poor. The project reaches the rural poor families through social mobilization processes and formation of SHGs, federation of these into Village Organizations at village level and Mandal Samakhyas at the mandal level. The project envisages that with proper capacity building, the poor women’s federations would begin to function as self managed and self reliant people’s organizations. The poor have started to demonstrate that they can shape their own destinies when adequate knowledge, skills and resource support is accessible to them.
Box 2: Critical Issues in Scaling Up While the sustainable models in agriculture like NPM are established on smallerScale, scaling up these experiences poses a real challenge in terms of:
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In this context SERP, learning from the experiences of villages like Punukula, initiated scaling up of NPM in collaboration with a consortium of Non Governmental Organizations, technical support being provided by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA).
Process of Scaling Up
In December, 2005, a small pilot project was launched in Kosigi Mandal (Blocks in Andhra Pradesh) as a livelihood intervention with the help of WASSAN. Farmers were trained systematically and technical support provided in the form of coordinators who were accountable to the Women SHGs. In 90 ha, with an average savings of US $75/ha on pigeon pea the total savings were US $6875.
Based on the experiences drawn from the pilot program, a bigger program was launched in 2005–2006 by establishing clear institutional system and a community managed extension system in nine districts of AP. Five villages were grouped into a cluster and were provided with a cluster activist. Each village has a practicing farmer selected as village activist who coordinates the village level capacity building programs in the form of Farmer Field Schools. All over nine districts 12,000 farmers with 10,000 ha in both kharif and rabi adopted Non Pesticidal Management.
Sixty-two Federations of Women SHGs (Mandal Mahila Samakyas or MMS), 150 Cluster activists and 450 village activists are involved in managing the program. Each MMS entered into an agreement. This clearly established that a paradigm shift in understanding pest management both at farmers’ level and extension system level can effectively tackle the pest problem and also give ample benefits to farmers in terms of savings on input costs, health costs etc. Better quality products from such production systems also fetch a better price to farmers and are highly preferred by discerning consumers. Also, the NPM intervention for the first time shifted the control in terms of production back to the farmer.
Awareness was created through state level campaign about the ill effects of pesticides and the potential alternatives. Communication material was developed and distributed for use.
Moving to community managed sustainable agriculture
The successful grounding of NPM during 2005–2006 has given important learning on how any ecologically sound and economically benefiting technology can be scaled up by providing proper institutional support. In 2006–2007, higher number of farmers in the same villages and more villages in the same districts and few newer districts joined the program. The program covered 1250 villages in 17 districts covering wide variety of crops from groundnut, rice, chillies and cotton. Program expanded to districts like Guntur where the pesticide problem is serious and north coastal Andhra Pradesh where the productivity of crops in general is low. The program is implemented in Adilabad, Ananthapur, Chittoor, Guntur, Kadapa, Karimnagar, Khammam, Kurnool, Mahaboobnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nellore, Ranga Reddy, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Warangal. Program covered more than 80,000 farmers cultivating about 80,000 ha. In addition to pest management, initiations on soil productivity management and seed management have begun on a small scale.
In addition to the NPM, efforts were initiated to establish seed networks so that farmers produce and share their seed. Seed banks have been established in 100 villages where farmers could retain, replace, reuse and revive seed, and are managed by the community.
Efforts are also on to develop non-chemical soil productivity improvement practices based on the experiences of the villages like “Enabavi” in Warangal (See Box 3) which became the first organic village in the state.
In 2006–2007, while the institutional systems were further strengthened; focus was also given to specific commodities like rice and groundnut in Kurnool district, pigeon pea in Mahaboobnagar district, cotton in Warangal and Khammam and chillies in Guntur district. The marketing links were established. The NPM products were in demand and could command premium in the market. The local processing and marketing of the commodities have also brought in additional benefits to the farmers. Agriculture credit from formal banks was mobilised in 3 districts to the tune of US $ 150 million.
In 2007–2008, the program was further expanded to cover 1,800 villages in 18 districts. There are more than 350,000 participating farmers cultivating 280,000 ha.
Special focus on certain commodities to deal with post harvest management to increase the value of the commodities. In 2007–2008, village level quality control centers were initiated in chilli producing villages. The marketing Community Resource Persons working with women SHGs were also trained in NPM and in 50 clusters (250 villages) they started motivating farmers to adopt NPM practices. Best performing villages are identified as resource villages and best practicing farmers are identified as community resource persons who will help in further scaling up of the program. Community Seed Banks where farmers produce, save, share and use their own quality seed were established in 70 villages.
In September 2007, CSA and WASSAN (sister organizations of CWS engaged in promotion of NPM) have organized a National Workshop on ‘Redesigning support systems for rainfed farming’ in collaboration with Rainfed Farming Authority and ICAR in New Delhi. The nationwide experiences of public sector and civil society organizations on local resource based, sustainable models in agriculture were discussed. The government was urged to redesign the support systems to help promotion of such practices.
| Box 3: Enabavi village shows the way
Enabavi, a small village in Lingala Ghanpur of Warangal district shows the way out of agricultural distress that almost all farmers find themselves in today. Warangal district presents a classic paradox of an agriculturally developed district [with most area occupied by commercial crops] showing the worst manifestation of the distress of farmers – that of the highest number of suicides in the state in the past decade or so. It is a district where farmers’ frustration with lack of support systems manifested itself in almost a spontaneous and well-planned agitations of unorganized farmers. Farmers in this district are known to have resorted to violence to end their problems, including resorting to a violent end to their own lives. Enabavi is a small village which showed the resolve of a strong community which decided to take control of its agriculture into its own hands. With just 45 households in the village belonging mostly to the backward castes, the village started shifting to non-chemical farming about five years ago. Then in 2005–2006, the entire land of 113 ha was converted to organic farming. This is not organic farming as you would normally expect. No expensive external certification here. It is a model of “declared organic farming”. Though there are no formal participatory guarantee systems established in the village in this alternative model of organic farming, there is strong social regulation within the community to ensure that there are no “erring farmers”. The elders in the village take the youth along with them. They also have started investing in teaching their school-going children the knowledge and skills of non-chemical farming. Special training sessions have been organized by CROPS to rope in children into this new system of cultivation in the village. The farmers here grow their food crops of paddy, pulses, millets etc., mostly for household consumption. In addition, they also grow crops like cotton, chilli, tobacco and vegetables for the market. The process of change began with a program that CWS had initiated to control the dreaded red hairy caterpillar, in the late 1990s. This was followed by converting all crops to the NPM. Later, some farmers came forward to shift from chemical fertilizers to other methods of soil productivity management. They started looking for other options like tank silt application, poultry manure application, vermicompost, farm yard manure etc. CROPS stepped in at this point of time and subsidized the costs up to 50% for tank silt application and setting up vermicompost units. The farmers set up their units at their fields and started following various ecological practices being recommended to them. They also started to depend on their own seed for many crops, except for crops like cotton. They set up farmers’ self help groups for men and women separately and started thrift activities too. Today, Enabavi has many valuable lessons to teach to other farmers, not just on how to take up sustainable farming. They also have lessons to share on social regulation, learning from each other, the benefits of conviction born out of experience and most importantly, the way out of agricultural distress by taking control over one’s own farming. |
It is planned that the program will also be integrated with other ongoing programs like National Rural Employment Guarantee Program (NREGP) to provide further employment opportunities to the agriculture workers. The state government has proposed to scale up NPM into organic farming in 5000 villages over next five years covering 10 million ha with an outlay of US $45.5million. The proposal has been accepted under Additional Central Assistance from Prime Minister’s package for distress states called Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.
Conclusions
The NPM scaling up model proves that community based organizations like federations of women self help groups form an excellent institutional platform for scaling up such models. To sustain agriculture and agriculture based livelihoods, this calls for a complete paradigm shift in the way agricultural practices are understood, developed, promoted and supported. The new paradigm is based on the local resource based technologies and a community managed extension systems.
Note: Longer version of this article appeared in Rajinder Peshin and Ashok K Dhawan (Ed.,)Integrated Pest management: Innovation-Development Process, Vol 1, 2009
