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Andhra Pradesh was the first State to be studied as part of the Project on Agrarian Relations in India. Census-type surveys were conducted in December 2005 in three villages. Ananthavaram is a village in the paddy-dominated tracts of south coastal Andhra. Within the south coastal region as a whole, there are also areas where a substantial share of total income is generated by coconut (particularly in Krishna district) and the cultivation of fish and prawn (particularly in West Godavari district). We decided to re-survey Ananthavaram, a village that was surveyed by P. Sundarayya in 1974. Ananthavaram is in Kollur Mandal, Guntur district, and is about 17 km from Tenali. It is part of the Krishna delta irrigation system, a paddy-dominated village with some sugarcane and some maize, and jowar and turmeric production in the rabi season. Bukkacherla, which is in Raptadu Mandal, Anantapur district, is a village from a dry, drought-prone area. The proportion of net sown area irrigated in the village is, by census records, 10 per cent, and the proportion of groundwater-irrigated land to total irrigated land is 82 per cent. Groundnut is the main kharif crop. Paddy is grown in the command area of the big tank, and specialized irrigated crops, including fruit crops, are grown on groundwater-irrigated plots. Kothapalle is a village representing agriculture where irrigation is from bore-wells and food grain and other crops are grown. The districts most typical of such agriculture are Karimnagar and Nizamabad; the village that has been studied is Kothapalle in Thimmapur Mandal, Karimnagar District. The proportion of net sown area irrigated in the village is, by Census records, 71 per cent, and the proportion of groundwater-irrigated land to total irrigated land was 100 per cent. The main crops are maize, paddy and pulses. |
