What is Conservation Agriculture (CA)?
It is defined as a
sustainable agriculture production system comprising a set of farming practices
adapted to the requirements of crops and local conditions of each region, whose
farming and soil management techniques protect the soil from erosion and degradation,
improve its quality and biodiversity, and contribute to the preservation of the
natural resources, water, and air, while optimizing yields. It can also be
useful in restoring natural resources.
Why conservation
agriculture is needed?
Approximately one-third
of the planet’s soils are degraded. In many countries, intensive crop
production has depleted soils, to the extent that future production in these
areas is jeopardized. Healthy soils are key to developing sustainable crop
production systems that are resilient to the effects of climate change. As for
the feeding of the burgeoning population of the earth, it is really very difficult for
all agriculturists to increase the crop productivity levels towards achieving
sustainable development goals.
Nowadays, we are facing problems in
modern agriculture- (a) have limited resources (energy, water, nutrient), (b)
increasing demand but low supply of good quality products, (c) increasing
environmental pollution and global warming, (d) less skilled labour, lack of
awareness among farmers about improved modern technology, (e) much more
dependency on the import of agricultural products from foreign markets lead us
towards uncertainty in food production in the future. Therefore, we are searching
for a new technology to eliminate above limitation, for these contexts the term,
conservation agriculture comes in existence.
Global
scenario-
CA is now practiced
globally in about 125 M ha in all continents and all agricultural ecologies,
including in the various temperate environments. While in 1973/74 CA systems
covered only about 2.8 M ha worldwide, the area had grown in 1999 to 45 M ha,
and by 2003 to 72 M ha. In the last 11 years, CA systems have expanded at an average
rate of more than 7 M ha per year showing the increased interest of farmers and
National governments in this alternate production method (Theodor Friedrich et al., 2012).
Techniques to be adopted
|
Current practices |
Recommended practices |
|
Biomass burning and
residue removal |
Residue returned as
surface mulch |
|
Conventional and clean
cultivation |
Conservation agriculture
based crop management |
|
Bare/idle farrow |
Growing cover crops
during offseason |
|
Continuous monoculture |
Crop rotation with high
diversity |
|
Low input subsistence
farming and soil mining |
Judicious use of off
farm input |
|
Intensive use of
chemical fertilizer |
INM with bio-solids
nutrient cycling and precision farming |
|
Intensive cropping |
Integrated crop,
livestock and tress production system |
|
Surface flood
irrigation |
Surface/buried drip,
furrow irrigation |
|
Indiscriminate use of
pesticide |
Integrated pest
management |
|
Cultivating marginal
soils |
Conservation reserve the program, restoration of degraded soils through land-use change |
(Lal, R.2004)
Principles of Conservation of Agriculture -
Benefits of conservation
agriculture
- It helps in increasing soil cover over the soil surface.
- It prevents runoff and soil loss by wind erosion.
- It enhances sustainable crop yield.
- It improves water and nutrient use efficiency.
- It mitigates the greenhouse emission from crop field.
- It helps in recycling and increasing availability of plant nutrients.
- It imparts minimum soil disturbances, thus enhancing C sequestration and improving soil quality by increasing organic matter content.
- It reduces crop loss due to weed infestation and more evaporation from the barren field.
- It improves the biological activity in the soil with an increased number of microorganisms.
- It overall helps in developing climate-smart agriculture strategy.
Indian
context
In India, efforts to adopt and
promote conservation agriculture technologies have been underway for nearly a
decade but it is only in the last 8 – 10 years that the technologies are
finding rapid acceptance by farmers. Efforts to develop and spread the conservation
agriculture has been made through the combined efforts of several State
Agricultural Universities, ICAR institutes and the Rice-Wheat Consortium for
the Indo-Gangetic Plains. The spread of technologies is taking place in India
in the irrigated regions in the Indo-Gangetic plains where rice-wheat cropping
systems dominate. Conservation agriculture systems have been also tried or
promoted in other major agro-ecoregions like rainfed semi-arid tropics. Spread
of these technologies is taking place mainly in the irrigated regions of the
Indo-Gangetic plains where the rice-wheat cropping system dominates. The focus
of developing and promoting conservation technologies have been on zero-till
seed-cum fertilizer drill for the sowing of wheat in the rice-wheat system. Other interventions
include raised-bed planting systems, laser equipment aided land leveling,
residue management practices, implementation of happy seeder like machines,
alternatives to the rice-wheat system etc. It has been reported that the area
planted with wheat adopting the zero-till drill has been increasing rapidly
(Sangar et al., 2005), and presently 25% – 30% of wheat is zero-tilled in
rice-wheat growing areas of the Indo-Gangetic plains of India. In addition,
raised-bed planting and laser land leveling are also being increasingly adopted
by the farmers of the north-western region ( Bhan and Behera 2015).
Problem and solution for
adoption of conservation agriculture-
It
is very difficult to convince the farmers to go for adaptation of C.A in a
large extent. But, nowadays, it becomes a route of attaining sustainable
development goals. There are a few problems and possible solutions for
successful adaptation of C.A in India.
a)
Air pollution due to burning of crop
residue- In most of
the parts of north India, residues are burnt due to considering as a waste
materials because of avoiding delayed sowing of succeeding crop which can be
managed through proper use of machinery and technique under Conservation
Agriculture.
b)
Lack of capital among farmers-
most of the Indian farmers are small and marginal who can’t effort the charge
of high-cost machinery needed for C.A practices. But some custome hiring centers
are working well to overcome the problem at a reasonable cost for farming
community. Governments are also providing subsidy on purchasing of improved
farm machinery along with some C.A machines
c)
C.A promotes weed infestation-
Actually, residue mulching, IWM, herbicide application, crop covering prevent
the reduction of weed emergence in the lower depth of soil in the long turn.
d)
Reduction in crop productivity-
If it is performed in a holistic manner along with considering all principal of
C.A then it can give yield more than equal to the convention agriculture
practices and can reduce the number of tillage practices which will help in
decreasing the cost of cultivation and making it more economical.
Conclusion
Conservation agriculture now becomes a new strategy to
combat the resource degradation problem and giving focus on achieving food
production target in India. Mainly success of C.A relay upon efficient breeding
programme, C.A based implements, good crop management strategy which makes C.A
more adaptive and remunerative to the farmers. In future days, conservation agriculture
may serve as a win-win technology by reducing greenhouse gas emission; saving
of water, labour, and energy; Carbon loss from soil, nutrient overloading and
finally provides protection to environmental degradation. C.A offers not only improved
land and water productivity but also makes a multi-disciplinary approach by
amalgating all resource conservation technology in a location-specific manner
for achieving sustainable food production.
Reference
1.Theodor Friedrich et al.,2012- https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/1381
2. Suraj Bhan and U. K. Behera-
International Soil and Water Conservation Research, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2014, pp.
1-12
3. Sangar, S., Abrol, J.
P., & Gupta, R. K. (2005). Conservation Agriculture: Conserving Resources
Enhancing Productivity, 19 p. CASA, NASC Complex, New Delhi.
~~END~~
