A hundred kilometers east of the bustling city of Hyderabad in rural Telangana, rice paddies stretch as far as the eye can see. Water is plentiful, the soil is rich, the sun shines… And since time immemorial farmers have grown rice, that has always fed their families, and gives a guaranteed income, every six months. But it requires much toil, and younger generations are not so tempted by the life of a paddy farmer. However, dreamed for jobs in ‘the city’ are not there, even for those with higher education.

But a change is taking place, thanks to the introduction of adapted practices for vegetable production. In only 18 months, some 1500 vegetable seed kits were distributed to farmers and schools, and 300 young farmers learned new skills, that gave them much-needed competence – but also the confidence – to invest their energy and capital in vegetable production. This infobrief tells the story of three of them…

Dass Kishta learning how to train tomatoes on string frames for improving fruit quality and yields from government extension agent Vijju Vizrumbhana (left), Govarden in his tomato field with his uncle (center), and Praveen Boini and the government extensionist assessing the insects caught in a sticky trap that he uses to control pests without the need to spray, that he learned about from the training courses (right).

And thanks to the outcomes of this project and others like it, the Telangana landscape may look quite different in the decades to come. The endless rice paddies could transform into a mosaic of diversified production, with young farmers tending vegetable fields that ensure a more productive, profitable and perdurable way of farming more nutritious crops. And as Vijju the extensionist concluded, “Yes, the farmers are getting wealthier, but they are also getting healthier, and producing these vegetables so others can be healthier.”

This brief and video report experiences from the Accelerating Farm Incomes (AFI) project, led by the International Fertilizer Development Corporation (IFDC), with technical support from the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) South and Central Asia regional center, Hyderabad. The project ran from mid 2022 until then end of 2023, in Telangana State, India, funded by the Walmart Foundation.