Sugarcane farmers in Alnavar near Dharwad in Karnataka state are no more worried about the insect

In Bangladesh, the first Farmer Field Schools were organised in the early 1990s, assisted by the FAO inter-country programme for IPM in rice. After initial positive experiences, several other donors (UNDP, CARE-Bangladesh and DANIDA) started projects to spread IPM to hundreds of thousands of farmers through IPM Farmer Field Schools. All these projects included season-long Training of Trainers courses to develop skilled FFS facilitators. Through this continuous support over the past ten

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach has become wellknown after the positive experiences seen in Indonesia and other Asian countries. In this article we describe how the "conventional' IPM Farmer Field School approach has been modified in the South Indian dryland agriculture context, in order to suit the needs and problems of farmers in this area. Dec 2007

Rats eat our crops, contaminate our stored food, damage our buildings and possessions and spread dangerous diseases to people and livestock. Compared to insect pests, controlling rats and mice can seem difficult. Experience has shown, however, that armed with the right knowledge and tools it is possible to sustainably reduce pest rodent populations in a cost-beneficial way. In recent years, applied research on ecologically-based rodent management (EBRM) has taken place in many countries throughout Asia and Africa. Dec 2007

A German ornithologist reported that a single pair of Tits destroys, annually, at least 120 million insect eggs or 150000 caterpillars and pupae. The contribution of birds in controlling and managing insect pests in agricultural crops has not been recognized by farmers as well as agricultural scientists in general. Birds are good indicators of agro-biodiversity and an important group of life forms in any ecosystem. Dec 2007

Farmers' traditional methods for managing the potato late blight in the Meghalaya hills are successful examples of ecological disease management and an established outcome of traditional experimentations. Such farmers' wisdom ought to be given attention in formal research systems. Dec 2007

Meghalaya, a small state in the North Eastern region of India, is inhabited by different indigenous communities, mainly of Mongoloid origin. Of the approximately 2.3 million population, about 85 percent live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

An innovative attempt was made to promote the concept of village based seed banks by the International Crops Research Institute for Semi- Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) as an intervention of Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihood Program (APRLP) in Andhra Pradesh state.

The rate at which indigenous Rice varieties are getting depleted is extremely alarming. It is becoming increasingly clear that to maintain biodiversity in farmers