BACK TO THE ROOTS

PRESENTED BY:
NIMIKA GUPTA
PRACHI SINGH
PRIYANKA SEHGAL
RENU ANTIL
ROHIT PANDEY
SAPNA SHAHI
 INTRODUCTION
• In the summer of 2004 most of the farmers were in
debt in Srikakulum district of Andhra Pradesh, Debt
farmers had only one way to change their debt
ridden lives, and it was by promoting the way the
families were practicing agriculture.
• Secondly the famers were always in debt. So it was
not possible for them to go for the fertilizers which
cost one third of the total cost.
• So there was a revolution by Community Managed
Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA). This is what this
article is all about.
 THE REVIVAL
• So instead of going for these expensive fertilizer they
went for locally available resources like cow dung
and traditional knowledge of controlling pests.
• Through this they started making profits.
• These were part of experiments in a revolutionary
approach to farming in Andhra Pradesh, called
Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA).
• CSMA was launched formally in 2005 by the Ministry
of Rural Development in Andhra Pradesh, CMSA
presents a bold alternative to conventional input-
intensive agriculture in a state that has the highest
consumption of pesticides and fertilizers in the
country.
 THE NEED
• Over the years, indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilizers
had degraded soil health.
• As a result, yields began to stagnate through the 1990s.
Coupled with high cost of inputs, that spelt doom for small
and marginal farmers in the state. Such farmers own less than
10 acres of land and account for roughly 85 percent of all land
holdings.
• Incidence of farmer indebtedness continued to rise;
agricultural woes have made Andhra Pradesh one of the
hotspots for farmer suicides in the country. An estimated 1,688
farmers committed suicides between 1997 and 2004.
 CMSA RESULTS
• So far, CMSA’s results have been heartening.
• The cost of cultivation has come down by 30 percent to 40 percent.
• Net incomes on per hectare (or 2.5 acre) basis ranged from $2,520 to $4,032 per
annum — a remarkable increase given the fact that earning of the landless poor in
India is less than $1 per person per day.
• Today, CMSA is being followed by over 3 lakh small farmers spread over 3,000
villages in 21 of the 23 districts in Andhra Pradesh.
• M.S. Swaminathan, who led India’s Green Revolution in the late Sixties, likens
the CMSA initiative to an “Evergreen Revolution” since it focuses on
sustainability of the soil and profitability to the farmers.
• Wheat yields grew at 3.10 percent during the 1980s, 1.83 percent during the
1990s, and just 0.58 percent during the 2000s. The story is largely the same for
most of the other crops.
 HOW THE MODEL WORKS
• Rural livelihood programmes under SERP, like CMSA, are financed by the World Bank.
• CMSA is additionally financed through community savings and other state and central
level programmes like Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana and Rashtriya Krishi
Vikas Yojana.
• The key to CMSA’s success is the community participation. The model’s approach is
ground up; in any village CMSA starts by the formation of a farmer self-help group
(SHG).
• Here, the existing women SHGs of SERP come in handy. Each SHG typically has 10 to
15 women. Each member pays a small registration fee which adds to the overall corpus
of CMSA for internal credit purposes.
• CMSA is not only helping subsistence farmers come out of their debt trap, but is also
showing them the benefits of a market which pays a premium for better quality.
 CHALLENGES
•So can the CMSA model ease the agricultural distress in a country where 60
percent of the population, roughly 700 million, is still involved in largely un-
remunerative agriculture?
The short answer is yes. But the conditions are:
•If this system can allow for higher yields in the years to come ,it can be
promoted.
•Researchers believe that while CMSA resolves the indebtedness problem, there
is no guarantee that the farmers will not rush back to using pesticides in case of
a major pest attack.
•Organizing people is the key to CMSA’s success but that is also the main hurdle
in replicating this initiative in other state
 CONCLUSION
• CMSA is not merely the replacement of a few chemical pesticides
and fertilizers by cheaper options. CMSA isn’t organic farming
either. Essentially, its appeal lies in its practicality in a country
where landholdings get smaller with each passing generation.
• In his budget speech this year, the finance minister, Pranab
Mukherjee, announced the extension of “green revolution to the
eastern region of the country … with the active involvement of
Gram Sabah and the farming families”.
• Irrespective of whether CMSA can be replicated elsewhere in the
country or not, one thing is certain: It will provide some key
markers to ensure that the second green revolution in India is more
sustainable than the first.