Report on visit to Lakshmi Devi palli

In accordance with the directives of Telangana State agriculture commissioner, Agri Biotech
Foundation has made a decision to adopt Lakshmi Devi Palli village and formed a team,
constituted with following members, to identify the areas need to be addressed in view of
forthcoming drought in the region.
1. Prof. G. Pakki Reddy, Executive Director, Agri Biotech Foundation
2. Dr. P. Sreeramulu, Subject Matter Specialist, Agri Biotech Foundation
3. Dr. Benthur, Subject Matter Specialist, Agri Biotech Foundation
4. Dr. Sk. Z. Ali, Assistant Professor, Agri Biotech Foundation
5. Dr.V. Sandya, Assistant Professor, Agri Biotech Foundation
6. Dr. Malli Karjuna, Assistant Professor, Agri Biotech Foundation
7. Mr. Rama Kotayya, Subject Matter Specialist, Agri Biotech Foundation
8. Mr. Gopal, Research Associate, Agri Biotech Foundation
9. Mr. K. L. Prasanna Kumar, Research Scholar, Agri Biotech Foundation
10. Mr. P. Dayakar, Research Scholar, Agri Biotech Foundation
The team visited the Lakshmi Devi Palli village located in Gopalpate mandal of Mahaboobnagar
district on 26/07/2014. Following are the key observations made by the team members
1. Irrespective of the cast, more than 80% of the populations, i.e. 60 households, livelihood is
agriculture.
2. The total area of the agricultural land is about 300 acres with 5 acres as average size of the
agricultural land per household
3. The village is also endowed with a tiny forest ranging between 45-50acres.
4. The normal crops cultivated in the village are rice, maize, cotton, groundnut, red gram, etc.
5. Of the 250 acres now being cropped with various crops, maize is the major crop cultivated in
nearly 150 acres, and the second is rice crop cultivated in 50 acres and the remaining land is
cultivated with crops like white sorghum, groundnut, red gram and with some other
vegetable crops.
6. There are about 60 cows and 40 goats along with more than 250 chicks are being reared in
the village
7. The village is having nearly 80 bores in her vicinity, of which nearly 65-70 are in working
condition, but the water head level is at its threshold level in all bore wells of the village
8. Along with bore wells the village is also having 10 farm ponds develop under water shed
development programme
9. In this current monsoon season, up to the last week there were no significant rains. The
village received notable rains in last week.
10. The farmers are claiming that coming two weeks are their only hope for getting rains, if the
rainfall is in normal range they would be getting 75% of the crop yield, if not there would be
mere or no yield. Hence they are already at critical state.
11. Several farmers of the village, for example: subbaiah, lakshmi, C. Kotaiah, M. Shashikala,
claiming that due the erratic monsoon rainfall their existing crops such as maize, groundnut
and rice were already damaged.
12. After listening the forecast of meteorological department and suggestions from the team
members, farmers are showed interested to cultivate alternative crops like red gram, castor,
vegetables etc.
13. Farmers are interested to sown castor in 30 acres, red gram in 5 acres and sorghum in 5
acres. In light of scarcity in power supply farmers are realised the importance of downsizing
the rice field and sowing with drumseeder.
14. As a means of immediate remedy, team members are cautioned the farmers to not to go for
rice or groundnut sowing in coming future