When the farmers here were still growing cotton, buying 10 kg of chickpeas every year for their household consumption was a luxury. Now, each family in the village joyfully consumes as much as 50 kg of chickpeas in a year. New chickpea dishes have entered the cuisine in different forms. Thus, it has made the young and old alike hale and hearty.

"We get 750 gm of dhal for every kg of whole seed given to the millers. We get the dhal through this barter system, and we do not buy it from the shops," says Mr Tubati Venkateshwarlu of Vinjampadu village. But 8 years ago, they had to pay at least Rs 8.50 for every kg of dhal.

"Chickpea is not a totally new crop to this region. Some local varieties of chickpea were grown in rotation with various other crops until a few decades ago. Cotton came onto the scene only in the early 1970s, and because of its commercial value it quickly caught on with the progressive farmers in these districts. Cotton was regarded as 'white gold' but it eventually led to deep sorrow for several farming families," said Dr A Satya–narayana, Associate Director of Research, Regional Agricultural Research Station of ANGRAU at Lam near Guntur town.

In the late 80s more than 70 cotton growers from the Guntur and Prakasam districts committed suicide out of sheer desperation. Their cotton crop was virtually devastated by Helicoverpa and white flies. Any number of pesticide sprays could not contain the damage. The resurgence of resistant biotypes of these pests was attributed to the indiscriminate use of synthetic pyrethroids and spurious pesticides sold in the market at that time.

At the Lam research station several cropping systems were developed. Crop combinations such as soybean – chickpea, soybean – maize, mungbean – chickpea were field tested in two of its adopted villages – Gottipadu in Guntur district and Kopperapadu in Prakasam district. "These frontline demonstrations of different cropping systems on farmers' holdings yielded promising results. Some of the crop combinations in the systems were time-honored practices, and they were found to be more remunerative than a sole crop of cotton," explained Dr Satyanarayana.