Over the last two decades, Dharamitra has worked with more than 1500 resource poor farmers located in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra and helped them to establish agro-ecological farming systems based on judicious use of locally available resources. These farmers were mostly poor tribal farmers holding mostly partially degraded land that was being cultivated under rain-fed condition. The farmers in each village covered under the programme were organised into a “Farmers’ Study Group” (FSG), which was monitored by a motivator, who was a young practicing farmer from the same village and trained in running FSGs and use of alternative agriculture practices. A package of non-chemical agricultural practices developed by Dharamitra was introduced to these farmers and they were provided knowledge inputs through training, demonstration and exposure visits. Close follow up and monitoring was organized to help them to sort out problems faced during adoption of the techniques. The data on crop yields as well as cost-benefit of crop production was collected analysed. The randomly collected soil samples from farms of the beneficiaries were also analysed for physical, chemical and microbial parameters. The work led to reduction in the cost of production, decreased dependence on markets for procurement of inputs, improved soil health, increased crop diversity, enhanced net profits and improved nutritional health of the farming families. Similar work is presently being carried out in liaison with about 500 tribal farmers in Wardha district of Maharashtra.