Sustainable Agriculture Systems and Technologies. Группа авторов
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Название: Sustainable Agriculture Systems and Technologies

Автор: Группа авторов

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Биология

Серия:

isbn: 9781119808558

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СКАЧАТЬ a type of cropping now has been widely recognized to maintain balance between human needs and ecosystem system services. It is a type of cropping with more number of the crop species. Agricultural diversification can safe guard greater food and nutritional security, minimizing environmental degradation, lessening poverty, higher use efficiency of land resources, and also preventing the impact of degradation forces and helping in contesting desertification. Diversification of agriculture opens new vistas for additional environmentally safe, sustainable systems, enhanced livelihood options for farmers. Some of the crops which are presently considered as underutilized can become a potential tool and hence will ensure more ecologically sustainable agricultural production systems and provide newer livelihood options for small holder farmers. As a matter of the fact global food supply relies on 150 crop species. And the most gruesome challenge is that out of the 150 crops, there are only 12 crops which provide around 75% of the world's food demand. This indicates toward one of the most unsustainable land use types for food production practices in the world. The simple fact that three cereal crops like rice, wheat, and maize are the principal source of more than half of the global food energy and that too from a limited number of varieties of the three “mega‐crops” made the agriecosystems very unsustainable. These cereal crops are also very exhaustive in their demand for nutrients and water, which further complicates the problem of resource degradation.

Schematic illustration of crop diversification maintains many of the ecosystem services and hence also maintains the resilience in the production systems. Image described by caption.

      (See insert for color representation of the figure.)

      Even under stressed ecologies (poor soil fertility, dry land scenario, abiotic, and biotic stresses), the crop diversification and growing of large number of crops are widely recommended to reduce the risk factor of crop failures. For the majority of farmers in different parts of the country, the gains from application of scientific tools and technologies in agriculture are yet to be realized. On realization, it will help in greater expansion of crop diversification in many areas. It is hard fact that the productivity levels of many major crops in India do not match with the yields obtained in agriculturally advanced countries even under predominant rice–wheat system. On the other hand, as a result of growing few crops in large areas, many problems in the forms of increasing biotic and abiotic stresses are emerging. Therefore, diversification of predominant cropping system in India will bring the new dawn of prosperity and resilience in agricultural production system. Therefore, efficient and effective crop diversification is a crucial for the sustainability of Indian agriculture.

      The good agronomic practices (GAPs), such as, conservation tillage, organic nutrient sources along with inorganic nutrient sources, weeds, insect pest, and disease management along with adequate irrigation water management in diversified production system can greatly reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The selection of climate smart crops which require comparatively lesser nutrient, water from production system and have lesser impact of biotic and abiotic stresses are the essential components of the crop diversification. In this category, oilseeds, pulses are good examples; for these crops, the GHC emission is also less. Conservation tillage and deficit irrigation can also substantially minimize CO2 and N2O emission. Appropriate use of the crop residue and complete banning of its burning reduces the generation of CO2, N2O, and CH4 to a significant extent. Crop diversification ensures greater functional biodiversity to cropping systems and it also regenerates biotic interactions underpinning yield‐supporting ecosystem services (Rathore and Shekhawat 2020). It embraces a variety of practices encompassing the management of crops, noncrop habitats, soil, and landscapes (Cardinale et al. 2012; Wagg et al. 2014; Renard and Tilman 2019; Tamburini et al. 2020).

      The advancement in technological development especially development of high yielding and biotic, abiotic resistant varieties, of wide window of growing period, CA‐based systems, land configuration, and other improved agronomic management, along with increasing value addition and better postharvest handling are the encouraging forces for promotion of crop diversification in different parts of the country. Green revolution technologies intensified cropping system in irrigated areas in favor of rice and wheat and other crops got less acreage due to low productivity and less profitability. This enhanced total output of cereals tremendously but also created second generation problems like intensive use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc., led to pollution of resource base, overexploitation of groundwater resulted in depletion of ground water, salinization. This made urgent call for crop diversification to achieve sustainable high levels of productivity СКАЧАТЬ