An experiment to prove that women can also handle land development programmes and natural resource management was begun in October 1999. The project covered 6 villages of Chennakothapalli mandal, exclusively under leadership of women for a period of 3 years. The next phase is to take up one village and work only with Dalit families under leadership of women. This work is being carried out by the Chennekothapalli working group as part of the Joint Action programme of VANA network.

Under this project land development activities were taken up in over 300 acres. Activities included stone clearance, earthen bunding, bush clearance and silt application.

Financial support for this work was received from EZE - Germany under Joint Action Programme Anantapur through SEDT - Anandapuram.

Anantapur district has gained infamy for its extremely high degree of groundnut mono-cropping. This has resulted in the loss of traditional food crop biodiversity and food security. The Collective has been documenting the current use of pulses, millets and traditional varieties of rice in order to preserve and propagate these seeds to a larger number of farmers in the hope that they slowly return to a mixed cropping systems. Pulses and millets are highly suited to the rainfall pattern of this area as they manage to survive and thrive on very low rainfall.

Pulses such as red gram, green gram, cowpea, black gram, bengal gram and horse gram are grown in this area in increasing order of rarity. horsegram and cowpea were recorded from very few villages. Cow pea is grown as inter crop during the Kharif as well as Rabi seasons. Horsegram is sown in the late Kharif amidst the main crop of Kharif.

Jowar (Sorghum), Bajra (Pearl Millet), Ragi (Finger Millet), Korra (Foxtail Millet), Sama (Little Millet), Haraka (Kodo millet), Barigelu (Proso millet) and Oodalu (Barnyard millet) are the millets found in this area. Jowar and Bajra are grown more in areas with black cotton soils and except for small patches these crops are less common in the red soil areas. Ragi is grown under rain fed condition in areas adjoining the border of Karnataka, in the south and south western region. Other millets are rare.

The Collective has so far collected 28 varieties of rice, 31 varieties of millets, 18 varieties of pulses and 7 varieties of oil seeds. It is now in the process of helping farmers become in-situ seed conservationists and to maintain and propagate these varieties of seeds. The farmers who have taken up the cultivation of millets and pulses notice that they do far better than groundnut in times of drought.

Parallel to this, the Collective is promoting the consumption of millets in the daily diet of its own members and friends. Towards this, a study of the comparative nutritive values of minor millets versus cereals such as rice and wheat is also being conducted.

The Collective works with the various community based organisations (CBOs) such as the forest protection committees, youth groups and women's self help groups to take up this work.

The problems of loss of agricultural bio diversity are highlighted and alternatives demonstrated and discussed during the annual Environment Day Celebrations that are held every year in one of the mandal headquarters.

Much of this work is supported by ASHA - USA under its WAH programme. The annual Environment day Celebrations are supported by local contributions and donations made by the many friends of the Collective

In order to carry out experiments, field trials, seed multiplication and demonstrations, a one acre demonstration plot (Nellavanka) on a piece of land has been established one and a half kilometers from Timbaktu. The land has a percolation pond and an open well on the downstream side. It was full of thorny bushes which were cleared. A one horsepower floating pump powered by solar energy has been installed in the open well. To improve the recharge of the well, the percolation pond which was in ruins was renovated. The bund was strengthened, a waste weir was built and the silt was removed from the bed. The land was tilled and prepared for sowing.

The plan is to keep aside a patch of land for growing dry land crops. In the remaining area, seed plots of vegetables, paddy under irrigated dry conditions without flooding and oil seeds have been established.

The soil was tested and found to be moderately alkaline to highly alkaline and the organic carbon content was low. This showed that this was a soil of low fertility which is a common scenario of the district. The challenge before the Collective is to improve the soil through organic means and build up fertility. A vermi-compost preparation facility has been established on the plot to serve as both as a demonstration unit as well as a source for organic compost for the Nellavanka farm.

Financial support for this work has been received from ASHA - USA under their WAH project.

• Transplanting young seedlings, just 8 - 15 days old, instead of seedlings that are 21 days or older, because this will preserve tillering and root growth potential that is lost by transplanting seedlings.
• Transplanting them singly, rather than in clumps of 3 or more plats, and widely spaced, in a square pattern at least 25 x 25 cm or even more widely, up to 50 x 50 cm if good soil conditions make this optimal, to provide room for greater root and canopy growth.
• Transplanting the plants carefully so that they suffer little or no trauma and can quickly resume their growth.
• During their vegetative growth phase, the plants should have moist but well-aerated soil either through light, intermittent irrigation, or by alternately flooding and drying the soil for 2 - 3 day periods. In either case, continuous flooding which creates hypoxic conditions for the plants while they are growing is avoided. After panicle initiation, once the reproductive phase begins, a thin layer of water, 1 - 2 cm, is maintained until 10 - 20 days before harvest.
• Weeding 2 to 4 times, starting 10 days after transplanting, preferably with a simple push weeder (rotating hoe) that aerates the soil at the same time that it removes weeds.
• Application of compost, preferably before rice planting, e.g., on a preceding crop. Chemical fertilizer also gives good results with SRI, but compost has given better yields since building up the soil's organic matter and microbial activity is part of the Agro-ecological strategy.

While SRI was developed for transplanted rice, the Collective has been experimenting with direct seeding in order to reduce labour requirements.

SRI, while maintaining or even increasing yields, actually reduces the water consumption by over 50% as the fields need not be kept flooded all the time.

In order to provide more on-field information about this method, the Collective organizes demonstration trips of local farmers groups to the farm of a well known organic farmer, Shri Narayan Reddy, who is practicing this method near Bangalore. The Collective has also experimented with using the SRI method on their own demonstration farm and have obtained promising results. The demonstration visits have convinced some of the farmers in the area to try this method in small plots of their own farms.

Financial support for this work has been received from ASHA - USA under their WAH project.