Poosarlapadu Organic village

Poosarlapadu village is a small coastal village in in Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh. Most of the women in the village are members of a self-help group and their primary occupation is agriculture. The average landholding in the village is approximately 1.68 acres and farmers mostly cultivate rice, chillies, green gram, black gram and vegetables. Poosarlapadu was one of the first villages to adopt Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA). Although, the village has good rainfall and access to irrigation facilities, but the farmers have been using fertilizers and pesticides for a long time, which resulted in high cost of cultivation. This had forced several farmers to borrow huge sums at high interest rates making them even more vulnerable.

The Mandal Samakhaya (MS) introduced CMSA to the village after. Initially, farmers were reluctant to adopt the technology. However, the initial results amongst the early-adopters were so good that the methodology gained wide acceptance within 5 years in the whole village. Several factors have contributed to the successful scale-up of CMSA in the village. First, the institutional platform of women only institutions played a critical role in assisting small and marginal farmers customize, adapt, and tailor the methodology to their needs. Second, the decentralized extension system, which is accountable to the communities, built technical support capacity in the village. Third, the premium price of CMSA and organic products further encouraged the farmers. Last, organic farming improved their health and reduced medical expenditure.

After adopting the CMSA method, farmers have reduced their cost of cultivation, without any loss of productivity. The reduced use of chemical has also improved the quality of the product. After witnessing the visible effects in their output, most farmers adopted CMSA in the village. The additional revenues due also encouraged farmers to graduate to organic farming in 2011 and Poosarlapadu is now completely an organic village.

The superior quality of produce from Poosarlapadu also encouraged Sresta, a bio-products exporter, to source rice from the village. In the 2 years more than 500 tons of rice have been sourced from Poosarlapadu. Farmers have been able to earn a premium of over US$9,000 or US$40 per farmer due to organic farming.

Source: Indian Grameen Services