Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Conservation agriculture: A new paradigm of resource management for food security and sustainable agriculture

7^th Indo-Global Summit and Expo on Food & Beverages

October 08-10, 2015 New Delhi, India

Umakant Behera1 and A R Sharma2

1Indian Agricultural Research Institute, India
2ICAR-Directorate of Weed Science Research, India

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Conservation Agriculture (CA) technologies involve minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover through crop residues or cover crops and crop rotations for achieving higher productivity. Conventional agriculture views the farm as a factory to harness maximum outputs with maximum inputs such as pesticides, seed, fertilizer and fuel. Intensive agriculture and excessive use of external inputs have led to degradation of soil, water and genetic resources; widespread soil erosion; nutrient mining; depleting water table and eroding biodiversity. These global concerns are threatening the food security and livelihood opportunities of farmers, especially the poor and under-privileged. About 10 million ha of good quality land is lost annually for agricultural uses globally, due to soil degradation processes which adversely affect agricultural production and profitability. The major emerging problems due to the adoption of conventional agriculture systems in India are as follows: Declining factor productivity, declining ground water table, development of salinity hazards, deterioration in soil fertility, deterioration in soil physical environment, biotic interferences and declining biodiversity, high energy requirements, reduced availability of protective foods, air and ground water pollution and stagnating farm incomes. Issues of conservation have assumed importance in view of widespread resource degradation problems and the need to reduce production costs, increase profitability and make agriculture more competitive. Following developments have led to a change in our thinking to adopt modified methods for cultivation of crops aimed at improving productivity and resource-use efficiency: Availability of new farm machinery, availability of herbicides for weed control, non-availability of labor, increasing production costs, energy crisis, erosion losses, pollution hazards, decreasing soil fertility, soil structure, reduction in organic manuring/green manuring, residue burning, low water and nutrient-use efficiency and thereby decreasing factor productivity and increase in cropping intensity. Adequate food production in the future can only be achieved through the implementation of sustainable growing practices that minimize environmental degradation and preserve resources while maintaining high-yielding, profitable systems. For this, conservation agriculture (CA) is recognized as potential way to achieve sustainability by improving the biological functions of the agro-ecosystem with limited mechanical practices and judicious use of chemical inputs. Globally, about 125 million ha area is practiced following the concepts and technologies for conservation agriculture and the major countries being USA (26.5 million ha), Brazil (25.5 million ha), Argentina (25.5 ha), Canada (13.5 million ha) and Australia (17.0 million ha). India has taken a momentum in practicing conservation agriculture technology in about 1.5 million ha under the rice-wheat system in the Indo-Gangetic plains. The tillage system is gradually undergoing a paradigm shift from frequent tillage operations before sowing crops called as conventional tillage (CT), to no-tillage operation before sowing a crop called as Zero Tillage (ZT). The zero tillage technology in rice-wheat cropping system is now foreshadowing nothing less than the end of an age-old concept, popularly known as �??more you till, more you eat�??. The need of the hour now is to infuse new technologies for further enhancing and sustaining the productivity as well as to tap new sources of growth in agricultural productivity.

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