ICAR-RCER Newsletter Jan.-June 2017

Abstract

Indian agriculture has been diversifying from cereals to high-value crops including fruits and vegetables, and livestock & fishery. The Eastern states supports 34% human and 31% livestock population of the country on 21.85% geographical area. Agriculture in Eastern India have been facing the challenges of the new economic regime, besides the usual problems of rising population, unemployment and poverty; declining investment in agriculture and degradation of natural resources. Crop diversification fulfills the basic needs of the farm households for cereals, pulses, oilseeds and vegetables and, helps in regulating farm income, withstanding weather aberrations, controlling price fluctuation, ensuring balanced food supply, conserving natural resources, reducing the chemical fertilizer and pesticide loads, ensuring environmental safety and creating employment opportunity. In the era of shrinking resource base of land, water and energy, resource use efficiency is an important aspect for considering the suitability of a cropping system. Hence, selection of component crops needs to be suitably planned to harvest the synergism among them towards efficient utilization resource base and to increase overall productivity. Rice-Wheat is one of the major cropping systems of Eastern states. Continuous cultivation of rice for longer periods with low system productivity, and often with poor crop management practices, results in loss of soil fertility due to emergence of multiple nutrient deficiency and deterioration of soil physical properties, and decline in factor productivity and crop yields in high productivity areas. Diversification and intensification of rice-based cropping systems to increase productivity and profitability per unit resource is very pertinent. Because of high rainfall in the region (average annual rainfall 1526 mm) during rainy season (June-September), frequent flooding with runoff water from uplands, and beside, rice being the staple food of people can not be replaced with other crops during rainy season. Hence, the only option left is to identify suitable crops for post-rainy (November to February) and summer (March to May) seasons. However, still there are the areas in the Eastern region where rice faces severe drought at different growth stages due to insufficient and disproportionate rain fall. In those regions, millets being drought hardy crops will play an important role in food, feed and fodder security. Growing of crops such as vegetables, pulses and oilseeds in post- rainy season is an alternative approach for realizing higher productivity and profitability. Moreover, large area in the region remains fallow (ricefallow) due to moisture stress. Therefore, there is need to evaluate the crops, varieties and management practices for higher productivity, resource use efficiency and sustainability.