Email interview Mrs. Manil Joshua SEDS Anantapur 1. What are the rural development initiatives undertaken by SEDS? · Afforestation · Vocational Training Programme · Food for work programme · Self Help Groups for women · Water shed programme · Dry land horticulture and reforestation · Natural Resources Management · Safe Drinking Water & Repair of Hand pumps · Health and Sanitation Programme · Flood relief programme · ...
First hand impressions of successful watershed management Chronically drought hit Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh has quite literally seen a watershed change from 'drought struck dry arid landscapes' into a lush green sandscape today three decades after Anantapur was declared as being in the " Process of Desertification in 1994 ". The debilitating nature of repeated droughts caused famine because of crop loss caused by missing monsoons. "According to Government records 19 years in the new millennium of 21 years have been drought hit" says Dr. Malla Reddy director of Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre in Anantapur who also serves as Member of the Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Mission. Climate Change and soil erosion were factors too. With ground water depleting to 900 metres below the ground in some places, thanks to unsustainable human development, local hydrology and topography, sand dunes and cactii marked the ignominious declaration of the district as ...
Dryland farming can be read as Climate resilient agriculture, for it is neutral to weather vagaries. It naturally supports cultivars like millets, pulses, lentils, oilseeds and native fruits. In this day and age when we are striving to decrease global warming from every walk of like including agricultural emissions and reduction of external inputs, dryland farming highlighting zero budget natural farming discounts irrigation, fertiliser inputs, and thrives in an environment without much effort. On the other hand they are hardy enough to not just thrive in harsh dry climate but sequesters carbon into the dry soils and the legumes fix nitrogen into the soil. These dryland crops also absorb the complex web of chemicals photosynthesizing into nutrition for human and livestock consumption. Millets for example are found to be so rich in riboflavin and iron content besides proteins that thy ae the ideal fit for endocrine disorders like Hypertension, Hyper-Thyroidism, Diabetes Milet...
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