By Katherine Zavala | Asia Program Director, IDEX
Agriculture in the Thar Desert is poor due to lack of rainfall and scarcity of vegetation. GRAVIS is setting up arid horticulture units (a small garden of fruit trees). The species of these trees have been selected by expert opinion of horticulturists, with a view that the plants should survive in arid conditions with a minimum amount of water. The units have 15-20 fruit plants such as lemon, desert plum, pomegranate, guava and anwala. In 2007, ten of these units will be set up.
While indigenous seeds continue to be used in rain fed agriculture, it is possible to improve quality of seeds by proper selection. GRAVIS will set up seed banks by using indigenous seeds of good quality. The seed banks will store seeds of crops grown locally.
GRAVIS has set up three seed banks, where farmers can store high quality varieties of seeds.
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