Pedabidda is a Gram Panchayat headquarters which is 15 Km away from the Mandal headquarters i.e. Ananthagiri of Visakhapatnam District in the State of Andhra Pradesh. A total of 65 tribal families reside in the village. The main livelihoods of these families are agriculture, Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFP) marketing and daily wages. Under agriculture, paddy, redgram, blackgram, niger, greengram, etc are the important crops in terms of consumption and limited sales in case of surplus. Under NTFP, Marking Nuts, Myrobalons, Amla, Clearing Nuts, Nux Vomica, Hill Brooms, etc are the main source of income. Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) in collaboration with Kovel Foundation, an NGO working exclusively for tribal empowerment has initiated Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) project in Tribal Project Management Unit (TPMU), Paderu area in the year 2006-07. Non Pesticidal Management (NPM) was promoted in this cluster of 5 village/hamlets including Pedabidda village. Most of the cultivated crops are rain-fed and during interaction with the Sasya Mithra groups, it was found that though considerable amount of back yard space is available, they were not using it. Moreover, all these families have to go to Damuku, a nearest weekly market place which is 8 Kms away for purchase of daily provisions including vegetables which are enough only for 3-4 days in the week. This leads to lack of sufficient nutrition. Other than this weekly market/shandy, they have to go to SrungavarapuKota which is 34 Kms away for purchase of vegetables and other domestic goods. As part of the interventions under the said project, the NGO had facilitated farmers to go for growing kitchen gardens in the available backyard space and nearby farming area for which they were given Vegetable MiniKits containing seeds of Tomato, Brinjal, Ridge Guard, Bitter Guard, Lady’s Finger, Beans, Onion, Bottle Guard and Pumpkin. Depending on the size of available space with each family, 4 cents to 30 cents of land has been used for this activity. The vegetables produced were used for consumption and the surplus was sold within and outside the village. Most surprisingly, they have earned a total of Rs 1,25,700/- income from the surplus sales. The per family income ranged from Rs 1400 to Rs 10,900/-. The family wise and commodity wise details are given below. Farmer wise income realized for the period from July 2009 to Dec 2009 Details of sales Sl. No Farmer Name Land (Cents) Tomato Brinjal Ridge gourd Bitter gourd Ladies finger Beans Maize Onion Bottle gourd Pumpkin Own consum. Total income 1 Salepu Subbannaidu 3 5900 600 200 250 1100 0 300 0 0 0 2000 10350 2 Janni Gasanna 10 500 300 0 0 300 600 0 700 0 0 900 3300 3 Pedakapu Yerranna 8 1700 300 0 430 300 420 0 0 600 0 900 4650 4 Janni Gangamma 1 600 200 600 100 500 330 0 0 0 0 900 3230 5 Janni Bheemanna 7 1000 0 0 0 0 0 250 0 200 600 700 2750 6 Salepu Bojjanna 15 1000 1000 300 0 300 0 700 0 300 1000 900 5500 7 Kuradaboyi Gangulu 10 2500 400 0 0 500 0 1000 0 600 0 900 5900 8 Janni Gasanna 6 1000 500 0 0 200 0 1000 0 300 0 700 3700 9 Janni Pandanna 7 900 200 0 0 300 0 600 0 0 600 900 3500 10 Janni Ramanna 4 800 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 200 200 900 2200 11 Janni Simhachalam 20 1200 300 660 0 400 0 200 500 200 600 900 4960 12 Janni Sailu 20 600 0 0 0 0 0 1600 0 200 0 300 2700 13 Janni Appanna 6 600 800 0 200 0 0 0 0 400 0 800 2800 14 Janni Thammanna 8 600 0 0 300 0 0 500 0 380 0 900 2680 15 Janni Chinnayya 5 1500 500 0 0 0 0 0 0 500 0 500 3000 16 Janni Barkanna 8 500 0 0 0 0 0 1500 0 0 0 700 2700 17 Manjari Lakshmi 35 2500 1500 250 300 800 500 1500 300 400 850 2000 10900 18 Janni Lakshmi 10 1000 800 150 0 400 0 300 0 80 0 500 3230 19 Janni Demudu 8 1500 1300 600 500 7 470 640 320 435 250 900 6922 20 Janni Malanna 5 600 500 0 0 300 0 500 0 250 0 600 2750 21 Kurra Narayana 5 500 300 0 0 500 0 100 0 0 200 500 2100 22 Janni Chinnayya 6 550 455 350 225 315 0 555 0 330 265 600 3645 23 Salepu Chinnaiah 5 450 0 450 0 435 0 0 0 235 215 400 2185 24 Janni Neelammaa 5 700 850 0 55 555 40 330 0 0 150 600 3280 25 Janni Rajulamma 4 750 400 300 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 400 1890 26 Janni Ramanna 6 500 0 0 150 300 0 0 0 0 0 450 1400 27 Jangidi Latchanna 5 650 450 0 160 350 0 150 0 350 0 650 2760 28 Salepu Looka 6 450 450 0 0 150 0 440 0 150 0 500 2140 29 Jogi Ramudu 5 650 0 0 60 350 0 0 0 0 215 400 1675 30 Gara Demudu 6 700 550 3 340 400 0 350 0 210 0 800 3353 31 Bidda Gangulu 7 1500 680 620 0 250 0 0 0 0 0 900 3950 32 Bidda Chinnarao 8 1100 250 0 0 70 0 0 0 0 0 750 2170 33 V. Sanyasamma 5 1350 670 355 0 270 0 360 0 0 220 600 3825 34 Janni Dharmanna 6 600 320 0 0 180 0 0 0 0 315 600 2015 35 Janni Kondanna 4 455 330 0 0 140 0 0 0 215 0 450 1590 Total 279 37405 15005 4838 3070 9672 2360 12875 1820 6575 5680 26400 125700 Ms Manjari Laxmi w/o Atchanna said she did not know of growing vegetables. Kovel Foundation has supplied vegetable seeds and supported while growing vegetables. I have prepared the land and applied “Ghanajeevamrutham”and I was able to reduce external inputs cost besides cultivating organic vegetables. I have earned Rs 10,900 as gross income and Rs 5,000/- was saved in the post office after meeting expenses for personal needs. Ms Pedakapu Bangaramma w/o Rambabu while narrating her experience said that she had grown vegetables in 10 cents of land and got good yield. She sold all the vegetables to the Ashram school in the village with the intention of providing quality vegetables to the children though she would have got more money if she had sold it in the weekly shandy. Source: Indian Grameen Services