Baseline Survey for Agricultural Biodiversity in Anantapuramu and Kurnool Districts of Andhra Pradesh, India 2014

Abstract

Bioversity International is a global research-for-development organization belonging to CGIAR consortium with a vision that agricultural biodiversity nourishes people and sustains the planet. It delivers scientific evidence, management practices and policy options to use and safeguard agricultural biodiversity to attain sustainable global food and nutrition security. Bioversity works with partners all over the world including India. In its effort to empower farmers through various interventions for conserving and Horticultural Research Station, Anantapuramu Page 9 utilizing the native/local biodiversity for sustaining the efforts of conservation and management and ensuring nutritional security on long-term basis, it has started programmes with Dr. Y.S.R. Horticultural University, Tadepalligdem, Andhra Pradesh, India which has a similar vision. A survey was planned and implemented in four villages namely Mallapuram and Kurlapalli of Anantapuramu district and V. Bonthiralla and Yerraguntla of Kurnool district. A total 200 households were identified among the four villages for the this survey work. Focused Group Discussions (FGD) were carried out to elicite the indegenous and traditional local knowledge about agriculture biodeversity, dietery biodiversity and market biodeversity available in the study areas. This was mainly aimed at generating complete inventary of usefull plant, animal, acquatic species used by local communities, particularly for food and income. It also aimed at preparing the inventary of variety of food consumed and the species and products bought and sold in the market by the people in the study villages. The surevy was undertaken to understand and document the crop biodiversity in the area with the following objectives.