Agricultural Re-do In India

Where corporations don't entirely rule, much can be done. Great news from India, snips:

As we enter 2010, the script for a futuristic agriculture, which brings back the smile on the face of farmers, without leaving any scar on the environment, is being rewritten. 

What began as a small initiative some six years back in a non-descript village in Khamam district,
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expanded to 2 million acres of 21 districts. More than 0
.6 million acres increase in a farming system that does not use chemical pesticides, and is also phasing out chemical fertiliser,
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It uses a mixture of scientific proven technologies, indigenous knowledge and traditional wisdom. Farmers are replacing chemical fertilisers and pesticides with microbial formulations, intensive use of composting techniques, vermi-composting, and apply bio-fertilisers, and use bio-extracts for controlling pests.
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There is more money now in the hands of the farmers. The cost of cultivation per acre has also come down by 33 per cent. Take the case of cotton, a CMSA farmer saves more than Rs 12,500 per hectare in a year on account of no application of pesticides alone. With his crop productivity remaining stable, cotton farmers have got a new lease of life. The environment too has become healthier and safe.
Normally, 56 per cent of the cost of cotton cultivation is primarily on account of pesticides. And don't forget, elsewhere in the State and for that matter in the country, 70 per cent of the farmers who are committing suicide are engaged in cotton cultivation.

No farmer has committed suicide in the areas where non-pesticides management system of farming is being followed.
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out of the 467 families that had mortgaged their land, at least 386 have recovered it in two years time.
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Women and farmer Self Help Groups' play a critical role in CMSA. Savings have increased, and a federation of 850,675 self-help groups now involves 10 million women from the poor households. This federation now holds a corpus of US $ 1.5 billion providing a bundle of economic services. No wonder, sustainable agriculture without external inputs can revolutionise the rural landscape, where hunger and poverty becomes history.