Conservation agriculture for sustainable food security in India.

Abstract

The population explosion post 1970s was primarily driven by the agriculture development coupled with good health care facilities. The health care facilities reduced the mortality rate while increased population was well fed to remain alive and contributed towards societal development. The food grain production in the country increased continuously due to introduction of high yielding varieties, plant protection chemicals, fertilizer and expansion of irrigation facilities. This made our farmers prosperous and food security of poor people ensured at affordable prices. At the same time, this have created a great pressure on the natural resources as the many of faulty agricultural practise and deployment of the crops in non-traditional areas with our proper planning raised serious environmental concerns. However the glory of the past is likely to be unstable in the scenario of declining water table in some of the high productive areas of western Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) and peninsular India is alarming and lead to creation of dark zones. This has become matter of concern for the present rice-wheat in IGP and rice-rice in peninsular India. The soil sickness, fading organic carbon, multiple nutrient deficiency, build up of insect-pest and disease which lead to decrease in input use efficiency and are the major challenges for the sustainability of modern agriculture. It is further aggravated by the fast-changing climatic conditions having aberrant weather conditions, which pose a serious threat to the sustainability farming in the world and India in particular. The excessive tillage operation enhances the production cost and carbon oxidation and thus causes economic and soil health losses. The increased area and production may have a threat to nutrient mining due to high nutrient removal with biomass and thus may make the future maize farming under threat. The reduction of the diesel consumption in agriculture and enhancement of soil carbon in soil could arrest the escalating burden of the environmental footprints and sustainability.