Welcome to PRDIS

Participatory Rural Development Initiatives Society

ONGOING PROGRAMMES

1. Agri-Clinics and Agri-Business Centres Training Programme

This scheme has been lauched by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, in association with NABARD, Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) and MANAGE. The objective of the scheme are:

To supplement the efforts of the government extension system
To make available supplementary sources of input supply and services to needy farmers.
To provide gainful employment to agriculture graduates in new emerging areas in the agricultural sector.

PRDIS is one of the approved training centers for imparting this programme. The duration of each training programme is two months. The training curriculum includes theory, practical and field visits to expose the participants to small business entrepreneurs. We have already trained three batches of trainees. The topics such as agribusiness, marketing management, financial management, project management exports opportunities, personality development and communication skills, agricultural extension and entrepreneurial development are covered during this training. After completion of the training, PRDIS provides handholding facilities to the prospective entrepreneurs. PRDIS is regularly publishing a news letter "Agripreuner News".

2. Impact Assessment of FFS approach to IPM on cotton in Karnataka State

FFS approach to IPM embarks on experiential field-based learning in pest and crop management of a selected group of farmers in selected villages. Training conducted by a professional facilitator takes place in the field usually at weekly intervals for one entire season. At the end of the FFS, participants are expected to have gained enhanced knowledge and understanding of the factors and forces that drive the performance of agro-ecosystems. It is expected that the season long field learning experience will enable the participants to become more informed of independent pest and crop management decisions and enable them to be more critical in assessing any new information on agriculture technology imparted by external agents.

The objectives of the FFS are:

• To empower farmers on decision making.
• To educate farmers with science based learning.
• To make farmers active experts and evaluators rather than passive acceptors of technology.
• To facilitate confidence building with field interaction and discovery based learning.
• To encourage experimentation with skill orientation.

3. District Level Monitoring of Rural Development Programmes

The Monitoring Division of Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India sponsors this monitoring programme. The main objectives of the monitoring are :

To maintain the flow of authentic and reliable information about the performance of the programmes of the Ministry from the district level to the Ministry.
To obtain qualitative feedback about the implementation and policy environment at the district level in order to remove bottlenecks in the implementation and make it more effective.
To check and verify the physical achievements reported by the district level implementation agencies.

PRDIS is conducting this monitoring in five districts of Andhra Pradesh. These districts are: Medak, Anantapur, Nalgonda, East Godavari and Vizianagaram.

PRDIS has established monitoring offices in the concerned districts. A regular contact with various officers dealing with schemes of Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India is being maintained. Field officers and their staff (based in the districts) are conducting physical verification of schemes in selected villages. The multidisciplinary teams visit the districts and guide the field officers.

4. District Level Monitoring of TSC and Swajaldhara Programmes

TSC and Swajaldhara are key programmes of Ministry of Rural Development, GOI, for ensuring better water supply, health and sanitary behaviour of people in the rural areas.
Main issues related to proper implementation of these programmes are :

Information, education and communication (IEC)
Involvement of stakeholders
Construction of physical structures
Training activities
Hygiene education, water quality and health issues.

During 2005 – 06, The Govt. of India has assigned regular monitoring of TSC and Swajaldhara in six districts to PRDIS. These districts are : Anantapur, Medak, Adilabad, East Godavari, Nalgonda and Vizianagaram.

5. Watershed Development Programme (APRLP)

This programme is being sponsored by Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihood Programme (APRLP) of DFID. The programme is being implemented through DPAP, Mahaboobnagar. PRDIS is project-implementing agency (PIA) for 6 watersheds in Bhoothpur mandal of Mahaboobnagar district.

6. Farmer Field Schools on ICM in Rice, Chattisgarh

In accordance with the MoU entered between PRDIS and Chattisgarh Tribal Development Society (CTDS) funded by the IFAD, the PRDIS organized Farmers Field Schools (FFS) on ICM in rice in four selected villages of Lundra Block of Ambikapur district in Chattisgarh during kharif 2005. These FFS aim at making farmers experts and skill oriented in rice production technologies resulting in augmenting production and productivity besides conserving ecosystem and water resources. As a result, the rice yields have improved significantly and many tribal farmers are inclined towards adopting ICM in rice.

7. Promotion of Bio-villages at Bhootpur

PRDIS has also organized FFS on Cotton IPM in the selected APRLP villages at Bhootpur mandal in Mahaboobnagar district with self-supported finances, duly rendering technical guidance under FLD programme of the State Department of Agriculture. In this programme, the farmer facilitators trained by PRDIS are supplying Trichocards and Neem Seed Kernel (NSK) extract to their own villages and other villagers and enabled them to effectively adopt IPM on cotton. Besides these, many farmers have installed vermi-compost and Bio-gas units paving way towards Bio-villages.

Due to the untiring efforts of PRDIS on cotton IPM, pesticide application has been significantly reduced to a large extent in two villages and nearly 80 percent of the farmers are practicing IPM.

Witnessing the encouraging results, many farmers from neighbouring villages are enthusiastic towards taking up IPM on cotton and other crops.

PRDIS has also taken up Comprehensive Land Development Programme (CLDP) in five villages where several activities like the clearance of bushes and stones, silt application, land leveling etc., have been undertaken in addition to NRM activities in the two villages with a coverage of 350 hectars.

9. Seed Village Programme on castor at Bhootpur

To ensure supply of pure and quality castor seed to farmers of Mahaboobnagar district and other areas, PRDIS initiated organization of seed village programme in Bhootpur mandal and provided necessary input supply and technical advice.

Under this programme, the PRDIS has supplied 28 Kg of breeder seed and 102 Kg of foundation seed of castor to cover an area of 47 acres in 24 farmers’ fields of 4 villages in Bhootpur mandal. The PRDIS facilitators render the technical advices of crop husbandry activities, and the farmers are very much impressed at the efforts of PRDIS in helping them to produce quality castor seed.

9. Health Study

A study on health effects due to pesticide poisoning is being carried out in eight villages of Mahaboobnagar district. This study is under taken in collaboration with Wageningen University, Netherlands.