Climate Change Mitigation - Climate Resilient Agriculture for Ensuring Food Security - page 277

(e) Coordination with irrigation and rain-
fall events : Application of fertilizer
immediately after rain will increase N
use effi ciency of plants and mitigate
N 2 O emissions. Losses of nitrogen
through leaching, volatilization, and
denitrifi cation in a farmer's rice fi eld
(which had received 67.5 kg N ha −1
after rain) decreased up to
40.5 kg N ha −1 compared to total
amount of loss which was
80.3 kg N ha −1 with the farmer's prac-
tice of alternate fl ooding. The excep-
tion was when there were mid-season
drainage or alternate fl ooding and
drainage cycles, in which case it
increased (Pathak 2010 ). The N man-
agement regime also reduced global
warming potential (GWP) by 1-9 %.
Nitrogen fertilization is a signifi cant
input cost for farmers worldwide, and
therefore, some of the approaches, such
as split applications of fertilizer to bet-
ter match plant uptake needs, are in
common use. On the other hand, chem-
ical inhibitors are relatively expensive,
so they are less widely used, but never-
theless have gained some acceptance as
suggested by the number of positive
yield studies in the USA.
(v) Advantages
• Reductions in N 2 O emissions can be
achieved by relatively simple adjust-
ments in the farming practices, such as
using fertilizer in larger granules and
applying it in more frequent, smaller
applications, yet high productivity can
be maintained.
• Increase in farm N use effi ciency will
reduce leaching of NO 3 − to groundwater.
• Making crops more N use effi cient will
decrease the need for inorganic N fertil-
izers and thereby reduce emissions
from fossil fuel associated with their
manufacture.
(vi) Disadvantages
• The use of chemical inhibitors of N 2 O
emissions may leave unacceptable resi-

dues, and they may not be effective in
certain types of soil.
• The present prices of chemical inhibitors
of N 2 O emission are quite high, so they
are not affordable to many farmers, and
they are not commercially available in
many regions.
(vii) Interventions
(a) Research and development
• Enhancing the understanding of soil
nutrient dynamics, crop nutrient
requirements, and nutrient transfor-
mations in soil to increase nutrient
use effi ciency and to improve the
stock of plant nutrients in the soil

• Economic evaluation of each inte-

grated nutrient management technol-
ogy and identifi cation of constraints
in the adoption of each technology

(b) Technologies and practices
• Promotion of organic farming to
improve the land quality and reduce
carbon footprint
• Improving management of inorganic
fertilizers through proper timing of
fertilizer application, use of innova-
tive fertilizer material, and develop-
ment of soil testing techniques
• Developing cultures of microorgan-
isms and techniques which hasten
the process of composting for pro-
ducing good quality compost
• Promoting effi cient management of
crop residues in rice-wheat system
• Promoting recycling of crop/farm
wastes and their conversion into eas-
ily transportable and usable forms
for effective utilization in plant
nutrient supply
• Planning the sequencing of crops
based on their nutrient demands,
nutrient uptake effi ciencies, and
residues
• Breeding and selection of superior
N-fi xing legume species and culti-
vars, short duration pulses, and fast-
growing fodder legumes for green
manuring