Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
seem to be more certain methods for further gain. Incidentally, these are also the areas
where seed-based technologies alone have not done so well in enhancing productiv-
ity. Farmers located in the lesser-endowed regions located between 78.83° and 86.13°
east longitudes often have low productivity owing to the presence of Chaur, Tal, and
Diara
lands (low-lying waterlogged areas); shifting river courses; droughts and floods;
rice fallow spread over >4 Mha; poor-quality seed systems; low fertilizer use; late
planting; weak infrastructure and technology fatigue; and little groundwater develop-
ment during the kharif season. These areas if put to effective use can easily produce
an additional 10-15 Tg of food with appropriate technological support. It may also
be mentioned here that risk-prone (waterlogged/flood-prone/drought-affected) farmers
located in eastern Gangetic plains do not have worthwhile fertilizer recommendations.
5.5 CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE AS A CONCEPT FOR
INTENSIFICATION OF CROPPING SYSTEMS
Increased food production with better distribution without compromising the envi-
ronment and degrading the natural resources has been the most sought-after goal
worldwide in the last century. Increasingly, CA is being accepted as an important
strategy for enhancing productivity, improving environmental quality, preserving
natural resources, improving food security, and reducing poverty. The basic compo-
nents of CA include drastic reduction in tillage, adequate retention of crop residues
on the soil surface, use of economically feasible diversified crop rotations, avoidance
of freewheeling, and practice of controlled traffic, if possible. These elements of CA
are not site specific but represent unvarying objectives that are practiced to extend CA
technologies efficiently across all production conditions. The strategic entry points for
CA can vary according to locations based on the relative importance of the production
constraints. No-till agriculture is considered as a revolutionary step in the direction
of preventing land degradation and rehabilitation of the resilient but fragile lands.
No-till agriculture together with other associated management practices, such as
direct seeding into loose crop residues to provide soil cover and to conserve soil mois-
ture, judicious choice of crop rotations, and agroforestry tree species, constitute CA.
Frameworks such as CA, “ecological intensification” (Cassman 1999), and “evergreen
revolution” (Swaminathan 2000) share a view of cropping systems as agroecosystems
designed to make maximum use of fixed resources (land, light, temperature, etc.)
along with optimum use of agri-inputs for attaining sustainable production levels.
These systems tap the traditional knowledge of the farmers and add new information
relevant to the specific ecologies for the intensification process (Matson et al. 1997).
With limited scope for further expansion of the area under agriculture, decreas-
ing factor productivity, quantum jump in production can only be achieved through
agriculture intensification. Can CA lead to agriculture intensification? Agricultural
intensification can be accomplished through (i) increasing yields per hectare (e.g.,
timely planting and with increased inputs such as water and fertilizer nutrients),
(ii) increasing cropping intensity per unit of land (e.g., use of short-season crop culti-
vars, relay and mixed cropping, and growing an additional crop), and (iii) changing
land use from low-value crops or commodities to those that receive higher market
prices. Sustainable agricultural intensification is defined as producing more output
