A CASE STUDY ON COMMUNITY SEED BANK IN DOULTABAD MANDAL, MAHABUBNAGAR OF TELANGANA STATE

Since independence several government sponsored schemes have been implemented for the reduction of rural poverty. However, the net result of all these programmes have not made desired impact in the removal of rural poverty. Rural poverty in our country has direct and strong relationship with the agriculture scenario. India’s agriculture sector however faces sever crisis for the future. Despite sizeable national food stocks, widespread poverty and hunger remain because agricultural and country’s national economic growth has not adequately benefited disadvantaged areas and the poor. Most of the agricultural output increased over the years has taken place under irrigated conditions. The crisis of agricultural biodiversity in India has been attributed to change in cropping pattern with the use of HYV and hybrid seeds. The risk of losing climate resilience crop is very high with the dependence on exotic variety of seeds available. Increased dependence of farmers on the outside sources than their own seed system led to the decrease in productivity, rising cost, decreasing resilience, reduced diversity in crop as a result of non-availability of seed in time without any contingency, lower quality, lack of diversified seeds. Conservation of agricultural biodiversity is impossible without the participation of communities who have evolved and protected the plants and animals that form the basis of sustainable agriculture. In some rainfed areas of the country, the efforts have been made to establish community managed seed systems, where the community owns the entire process of seed production, storage, quality check and distribution. In this regards, some efforts have been made in Doultabad mandal of Mahabub nagar district in Telangana state under Comprehensive pilot of Revitalisation of Rainfed Agriculture (RRA) network. Showing the interest and commitment of the RRA Network, it was therefore thought to study such initiatives and to determine the scope for replication of this program in similar rainfed areas in the country.