A study in 1987 concluded that agricultural innovations for dryland had been developed in India but that, amongst others extension and implementation was not very successful. The present study is in fact a continuation of this interest in the problems faced by farming households living in remote, economically backward, semi-arid regions and the policies towards these regions. The study focuses on agricultural change in a semi-arid area south of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh and analyses in depth the effect of two intervention strategies: a project financed by the World Bank and implemented by the Andhra Pradesh government and a project implemented by AWARE, one of the largest NGOs in Andhra Pradesh and in India. Agriculture is of prime concern in India, and a bad monsoon the nightmare of every sitting government. Thus it intends to compare government and NGO interventions and non-intervention with regard to dryland agriculture in the semi-arid region of Andhra Prradesh. It aims to analyse the process and the consequences of adoption of improved technologies for dryland agriculture. The adoption of new technologies at the farm land and the facts explaining the use of these technologies form a major component of the study. This project was developed in cooperation with the Department of Geography, University of Madras and forms part of IDPAD (Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development).