Team:  Shrihari Hegde and  Gowthami R

Agriculture in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, a region in Central India, is characterized by poor soils, degraded lands and its reliance on traditional farming methods surrounded by a biodiversity-rich area. Farmers here largely employ traditional agricultural practices such as mixed cropping, crop rotation, and the use of local varieties, which contribute to the sustainability of these agroecosystems. Mandla’s diverse flora and fauna are integral to its agricultural sustainability, with many initiatives in recent years aimed at promoting agroecological practices to enhance farm incomes, restore degraded lands, and improve the nutritional security of the households. These efforts are part of a broader movement in India to embrace agroecology, ensuring the long-term resilience and sustainability of agriculture in the face of growing environmental challenges. Our project explores the underappreciated role of non-crop plants in agroecosystems, challenging the conventional view that regards them solely as competitors or weeds. It seeks to highlight the multifaceted contributions of these plants, including their provision of food, medicinal and economic benefits to farmers, enriching biodiversity, and delivering ecosystem services such as pollination and soil fertility improvement. However, they may also have several negative impacts such as resource competition with crop plants, acting as hosts of pests and diseases, thereby reducing the economic benefits to the farmers. By investigating both the positive and negative impacts of having non-crop plants, the project aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of their ecological roles using plant-arthropod interaction networks and promote an agroecological approach that values functional diversity. Additionally, the project addresses the need for climate-resilient food sources by documenting the under-utilized and unconventional crops used by the Gondia farmers in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh.