Rythu Kosam: Andhra Pradesh Primary Sector Mission. Delta Region Baseline Summary Report. Research Report IDC-12

Andhra Pradesh has set for itself the target of becoming one of the top three states in India by the year 2022 in terms of socio-economic development and ease of doing business. The state aspires to achieve the status of a developed state in the country by the year 2029, and the vision is to lay foundation for the ‘Sunrise state of Andhra Pradesh’. The achievement of this vision is incumbent upon a fast paced and sustainable double digit growth, delivered through a combination of programmatic and project interventions with a focus on sustainable and inclusive development. To achieve its vision, the government has charted out a multi-pronged strategy comprising seven missions, five grids and five campaigns. Among the seven, the primary sector mission, Rythu Kosam, is most prominent, aiming at achieving ‘double digit growth’ in agriculture and allied sectors. Also, a massive outlay of investments over the next five-year period (2015-2020) are targeted in the area of agricultural development under consortium approach by bringing state, national and international partners on board. In partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh ICRISAT leads the consortium, and has designed a strategy to transform the agriculture and allied sectors in the state. The focus of this mission is primarily: improvement in soil fertility, access to better seed, reducing the cost of cultivation, productivity enhancement and value addition in the agriculture, horticulture, livestock and fisheries sub-sectors. Initially, 13 pilot sites corresponding to 13 districts of the state have been identified and established for introduction, testing and scaling-up of a range of technologies over a period of time. The proven technologies will be scaled-up to the entire district with suitable institutional reforms and different scales. Supply and demand side interventions are aimed for improving the livelihoods of farmers in the state. A major objective of the present study is to document the current status of the three pilot sites covering 65 villages from eight mandals (administrative divisions) in three districts (West Godavari, East Godavari and Krishna) belonging to the Delta Region of Andhra Pradesh. Purposive randomized sampling framework was used to select representative villages from all study mandals in the region. A primary household baseline survey was conducted from representative sample farmers (1229 HHs) in the pilot sites in three districts...