In the course of about a decade of
work on Watershed Development in rainfed areas, WASSAN has
realised that there are hardly any relevant public investments
in agriculture that helps farmers to realise the investments on
soil and water conservation into production benefits, security
of crops and sustainable livelihoods.
A deeper probe in to the problem brought out the distortions in
the public policy and public investments in agriculture; these
favor irrigated areas and farmers with irrigation to the near
exclusion of the rainfed farmers. This needs to be corrected.
It is in this pursuit of evolving appropriate and relevant
policies, programs and institutional processes WASSAN intends to
share its experiences and outputs through this website to
encourage others to act in their own spheres of influence.
|| WHAT'S NEWS ||
|| Proceedings ||
Launching Meeting on Enhancing Soil Productivity in Rainfed Areas -
RRA pilot initiative
Evolving an
Alternative Paradigm for Seeds Systems for Rainfed Agriculture
27th -
28th, January 2011 - ICECD Campus,
Bopal, Ahmedabad, Gujarat organized by SATVIK
Enhance scientist-ryots
interaction to solve
problems
The Hindu, January 12,
2011
Project ‘Farmers First' aims to move
beyond production and productivity.
Read more....
|| NEWS ITEMS ||
Groundwater levels plummet in Andhra
Pradesh
M. Suchitra,
Down to Earth, January 16, 2012
Andhra Pradesh is heading for an acute
water crisis owing to ground water depletion. The latest data compiled
by the ground water department reveals that water levels across all
districts in the state.
Read more....
Intercropping: when rice breeds fish
breeds rice
D.
Balasubramanian, The Hindu, December 5, 2012
A notable announcement would have been
made yesterday at this year's Indian Science Congress at Bhubaneswar,
Orissa. The rural, tribal belt of Koraput, Orissa which is rich in
floral and faunal diversity would have been formally declared as the
eleventh “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System” (GIAHS) by
the FAO-UNDP-GEF group.
Read more....
UN Heritage status for Koraput farming
system
in Odisha
Jyotika
Sood, January 4, 2012
Indigenous knowledge and farming
practices of the region's tribal people recognised for promoting food
security and conserving biodiversity.
Read more....
More fertilizer use, but falling
response
and poorer soil
Shaikh Zoiab Saleem, Business Standard, January 2, 2012
The fertiliser sector gets its importance
by supplementing foodgrain productivity, which in turn feeds the ever
increasing population. But what if fertiliser use efficiency or the
nutrient response degrades?
Read more....
Food as people's right
M.S.
Swaminathan, The Hindu (Opinion Lead), 3 January 2012
India is on the threshold of a historic
transition from a ship-to-mouth existence to implementing the world's
largest social protection programme against hunger with home-grown
food.
Read more....
Fortify nutrient-based subsidy
M.
Rajshekhar, Economic Times, 22 December 2011
The nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) scheme, introduced in April 2010, was
meant to resolve these problems. The government fixes the subsidy on
fertilisers based.
Read more....
Decentralized Procurement and
Universalized PDS
Dr.
Kaustav Banerjee, Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), December 24,
2011, Vol No. XLVI No. 52
Decentralisation of food
procurement could facilitate universalisation of the public
distribution system under the proposed National Food Security Act.
Non-green revolution crops such as millets, coarse cereals, pulses,
oilseeds, etc, should also be covered in the PDS.
Read more....
Understanding the Andhra Crop Holiday
Movement
Author(s): Vamsi Vakulabharanam , N Purendra Prasad, K Laxminarayana,
Sudheer Kilaru, Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), December 17-23,
2011
Why would farmers keep their own
land fallow as part of a voluntary “crop holiday protest movement” in
a part of Andhra Pradesh is a question that has puzzled many. A field
visit to the Konaseema region reveals that the dynamics of class
contradictions in the area are also responsible for the nature of the
movement that goes beyond the issue of remunerative prices.
Read more....
What's your millet
mojo?
Gayatri Jayaraman, LiveMint.com, December December 9th, 2011
Long after millets
after India's dinner tables and became a poor man's 'low-caste' crop,
the diet-conscious affluent and activists are putting the grain back
on our food map.
Read more....
||
ANOTHER GREEN
REVOLUTION ||
Q&A: M.S. Swaminathan
Business Standard, March
13th, 2011
'A second Green Revolution will never
happen'.
Read more....
Q&A: Abhijit Sen
Business Standard, March
10th, 2011
Of Soils, subsidies
and survival: a report of Living Soils -
S.R. Gopikrishna and O.P. Rupela - This is the report of the
first-ever social audit of soil
health and support systems in India by Greenpeace.
It assesses the impact of government policies on soil health across
five states and finds out that indiscriminate chemical fertilizer
usage, catalyzed by a lenient subsidy policy and neglect of ecological
fertilization is posing a threat to soil health and future food
security of the country.
Read more....
Invest for 'Life in
Soils' - 10 ways to make 'Living Soils' possible (2011)
This document synthesizes various experiences on ground into a package
of 10 modules for action, amendable for government to invest. The wide
variety of options for enhancing soil fertility are elaborated in this
document along with the basic issues confronting their adoption and
policy measures.
Every Thirty Minutes
Farmer Success, Human Rights, and the Agrarian Crisis in India? -
Democracy
Now! speaks with Smita Narula, the co-author of the new report, "Every
Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights and the Agrarian Crisis
in India.".
Read more....
The state of food and agriculture
2010-11: women in agriculture- Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (March, 2011)
Women make significant contributions to the rural economy in all
developing country regions.
Read more....
|| NEWS FLASH ||
Kerala 'masters'
struggle
to keep alive rare cattle breeds
P. Sainath, The Hindu, January 5,
2012,
Read More...
From farmer to retailer, he sows seeds of change in Bangalore market Indian Express, December 19, 2011,
Read More...
Food Security Bill: Simpler The Better EPW, December 24, 2011,
Read More...
Grow your
own vegetables
at home - The Hindu,
24th January
2011. Read more....
Abdul Kalam's
special speech on
"Water Partnerships towards meeting the Climate Challenge
Abdul Kalam's website,
6th January 2011...Read more....
Farms sans chemicals
Asian Age, 28th October
2010
It's fast catching on organic farm tourism is the latest value
addition rural tourism has achieved across the globe...Read more....
Getting closer to nature through
organic farming -
The Hindu, 18th October 2010 -
Ravindra Prasad of Boddavara showing the technique used for increasing microbial
activity for soil health on his organic farming ‘Brundavanam' orchard at
Boddavara in Vizianagaram district.
Organic farming takes roots -
The Hindu, 18th October 2010 -
Organic farming, a concept well established in the
western countries in the course of past two decades, is slowly taking roots in
Madurai region.
Judicious combination of
manures, fertilizers ensures food security
- The Hindu, 14th
October,
2010- Growing organic foods is a matter of individual or enterprise
preference
Food security
depends on
small and marginal dryland farmers
- The Hindu - May 6th,
2010- About 40 villages in Tirunelveli have using chemical
fertilizers
Dr.
V.L. Chopra, Member, Planning Commission visited Laxminaik Thanda and
Yenabavi villages in Warangal districts. He visited to NPM and Organic
villages.
Picking straws becomes
a rewarding business in Kerala - Shree Padre
Scarcity of labour is forcing paddy
farmers to embrace machines in a big way. The farm mechanization
movement is spreading fast to the southern states of Kerala, Andhra
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture
fertility by The Water Channel
problems
system
in Odisha.jpg)
response
and poorer soil
Swaminathan
Invest for 'Life in
Soils' - 10 ways to make 'Living Soils' possible (2011)
Now! speaks with Smita Narula, the co-author of the new report, "Every
Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights and the Agrarian Crisis
in India.".
of the United Nations (March, 2011)
Women make significant contributions to the rural economy in all
developing country regions.
struggle
to keep alive rare cattle breeds
own vegetables
at home - The Hindu,
24th January
2011.
special speech on
"Water Partnerships towards meeting the Climate Challenge
Abdul Kalam's website,
6th January 2011...
broken
(PDS) Sunita Narain's blog
h
October,
2010- Growing organic foods is a matter of individual or enterprise
preference
