Catching Green
- State-promoted organic farming has picked up in a big way in Andhra Pradesh
- The CMSA programme was initiated in 2004 across a mere 400 acres in
12 villages. - Today, it covers 17 lakh acres in over 4,000 villages in the state. The number of farmers participating in CMSA has risen to more than 6 lakh.
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Call it going back to the roots. Or call it giving the Indian farmer his rightful due. The community-managed sustainable agriculture (CMSA) programme of Andhra Pradesh is low on cost, high on returns and is billed as the second Green Revolution. It’s a model that could possibly take on the Bt brinjal brigade simply by replacing the use of chemical pesticides with a combination of physical and biological measures, including eco-friendly bio-pesticides.
The Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, which implements CMSA on behalf of the government, calls it India’s largest...
