Conservation agriculture in maize systems: a way forward for sustainability.

Abstract

The present cropping systems facing challenges of sustainability due to arising problems of the soil sickness and decreasing input use efficiency. This is further aggravated by the fast􀀐changing climate having aberrant weather conditions, which pose a serious threat to the sustainability of agriculture in the world and India in particular. The conservation agriculture (CA) based crop management practices are found effective for mitigating effects of climate change due to lesser greenhouse gas emissions compared to the conventional system of agriculture. These practices also found effective for adaptation of the climate change effect due to changes in soil health and microclimate modification. The CA is the set of practices based on three cardinal principles of minimal soil disturbance, retention of residue as soil cover and profitable sustainable crop rotation. The CA has adopted over 185 m ha areas in the world. To potentially make the Indo Gangetic Plains (IGP) productive in a sustainable manner, conservation agriculture (CA) has to be effectively adopted and out scaled into the existing agricultural system (Jat et al., 2016). However, the adoption of the CA in India is still very less (1.5 m ha) as it was targeted in a limited number of the cropping systems. The maize is one of the fastest􀀐growing crops in India due to increased maize demand for remunerative prices and availability of best technologies for easier and higher production. The crop area of maize now reached close to 10 m ha and the upcoming areas as well as traditional areas if targeted with CA will be sustainable and more profitable. Hence, we enumerated the potential of CA in maize system with special reference to India in this paper for improving profitability and soil health for sustainable crop production.