While Yavatmal tops the list for farmers’ suicides with 222 this year, Adilabad has had only two. In 2003-04, when Andhra reported as many as 4000 suicides, Adilabad had recorded 300 coming down to 17 last year.

That’s why this journey holds valuable lessons for policy-makers battling to break the debt-death cycle in Vidarbha. And nothing illustrates the difference better than Polambari, a scheme launched by the Andhra government a year ago. Under this, “field schools” for farmers are conducted by trained officers. And more than what they teach, it’s just their presence that, farmers say, is key to the turn-around. Along with a range of related policy interventions (see box).

In sharp contrast, in all the six districts of Vidarbha — where average landholding of 7 acres is similar to the pattern in Adilabad — almost half of all Agriculture Research Officer positions are vacant. Even those who are employed are virtually invisible: staff have neither the funds nor the willingness to travel to the fields leaving farmers to the mercy of aggressive marketing by seed companies, moneylenders and with zero advice on pests, disease or new farm techniques.

In fact, the Rs 4.5 crore sanctioned to strengthen such agriculture extension services, under the Prime Minister’s relief package, is yet to be utilized.

To understand the difference this makes, consider this: Andhra farmers were notorious for their indiscriminate use of pesticide —spending as much as Rs 10,000 per acre, spraying as much as 10-15 times, not only increasing cost several fold but also reducing soil productivity.

This year, the cotton crop is good and most farmers are making a neat profit. If nature played a role, there was nurture as well. Thanks to classes at the field schools, pesticide control has been hammered into a new precept.

The results are visible: Adilabad’s pesticide sale, of mainly Monochrotophos and Endosulfan, has come down from 70 tonnes a year to 18 tonnes. One reason is Bt cotton which now covers 100% of the total cotton fields in Andhra Pradesh (only 60% of the Vidarbha crop is Bt and its yield this year has been less than expected). But key to Andhra’s solution is the close, regular interaction between farmers and state extension officers.

Take Adilabad’s Rampur village early one morning this week. About 30 farmers gather around Agriculture Officer V Veeraiah who is all set with books, charts, papers and crayons to explain how to cut costs in the nine months his students have to tends to cotton fields.

They have chosen a two-acre field as a classroom, on one acre he demonstrates how certain techniques can be employed to reduce costs without compromising yields. The other acre is left as a control group, for conventional farming to compare and contrast.

“The basic aim is to save friendly insects who do the job of killing other pests,” Veeraiah tells the farmers as he shows them how to use simple kits to test level of nutrients in the soil and identify which ones need to be supplemented.

Veeraiah also helps the farmer change certain age-old practices like applying phosphoric fertilizer later and not during the time of sowing. He shows them how to apply Monochrotophos only on the stem with a brush for sucking pests, not on the entire plant. This, he explains, causes the least damage to the environment and does not kill insects like the praying mantis which actually eat some of the dangerous pests. He even gets farmers to take turns drawing sketches of the pests and identifying each in the local language.

The “classroom” field belongs to young farmer Srinivas Reddy who owns seven acres. He proudly claims he is making a neat profit of Rs 35,000 per acre this year. The first pickings are done and have been sold in the Adilabad mandi, incidentally the largest in Asia.

Among Veeraiah’s students is fresher Dayakar Reddy who admits he was initially sceptical but now swears by these classes. His costs are down to Rs 2,800 per acre minus the picking cost, which is a third of what it is in neighbouring Yavatmal.

Veeraiah admits that more such schools are needed, he can only select two villages in his mandal for the entire season lasting 14 weeks. The rest, he depends on word of mouth. Next year, the best farmers from the present batch will travel to other villages to spread the word. Maybe some of them — or their lessons, at least — can take that 100-km journey to Yavatmal.

What Adilabad is doing right

• Improved Extension services that ensure constant interaction between farmers and officers

• Concerted crackdown on moneylenders

• Farmers already compensated for damage caused by heavy rains in August

• Subsidy on micronutrients like magnesium and zinc

• Increased cropping of soyabean by 30% to break the monocrop cycle of cotton