(GIST OF KURUKSHETRA) Sustainable Agriculture Challenges and Way Forward

(July-2023)

Sustainable Agriculture Challenges and Way Forward

Introduction:

Sustainable agriculture is the type of agricultural practice that focuses on the moderate utilisation of unreplenishable resources while keeping nature and future generations in mind. This concept advocates switching to renewable energy sources, sparing land use, and eliminating pollution from nature.

Three Pillars of Sustainable Agriculture:

Economy: This ensures the growth and profitability of the business for the farmers through the efficient use of viable resources.
Society: This pillar ensures enough food for the world’s growing population and fair employment and compensation opportunities for the local community.
Environment: This pillar ensures the environment’s protection through ecologically sound farming practices and less use of replenishable resources.

Major Sustainable Agriculture Practices:

Crop Rotation and Crop Diversity: Monoculture degrades the soil and is susceptible to pests. Planting a variety of crops has many benefits, including improved pest control.
Water and Energy-efficient Irrigation Techniques
Reducing Tillage: No-till or reduced-fill methods involve inserting seeds directly into undisturbed soil, which can reduce erosion and improve soil health.
Integrating Livestock and Crops: Livestock can feed on the by-products of the farms and crops can receive abundantly rich natural fertiliser and manure.
Adopting Agroforestry: Planting trees along with the crops conserves the soil cover and local water resources but also provides an additional source of income to the farmers.
Grow the Cover Crops: By sowing cover crops off-season, farmers can protect their fields from soil erosion and soil degradation. This acts as green manure for the crops.
Integrated Pest Management: It aims at long-term protection of crop cover on farms by mitigating pest attacks.

Sustainable Agriculture in India

Most Sustainable Agriculture Practices (SAPs) are being adopted by less than five million (or four percent) of all Indian farmers.
Crop rotation is the most popular in India, covering around 30 million hectares (Mha) of land and approximately 15 million farmers.
Agroforestry, mainly popular among large cultivators, and rainwater harvesting have relatively high coverage of 25 Mha and 20-27 Mha, respectively.
Organic farming currently covers only 2% of India’s net sown area of 140 Mha.
Natural farming is India’s fastest-growing sustainable agricultural practice and has been adopted by around 800,000 farmers.
Integrated pest management (IPM) has achieved a coverage area of 5 Mha after decades of sustained promotion.
The impact and coverage of practices like floating farming, permaculture, etc. is insignificant.

National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture

Aims to enhance agricultural productivity, especially in rainfed areas focusing on integrated farming, water use efficiency, soil health management, and synergising resource conservation.

Main Objectives:

To make agriculture more productive, sustainable, remunerative, and climate-resilient
To adopt comprehensive soil health management practices
To optimise utilisation of water resources through efficient water management to expand coverage for achieving ‘More Crop Per Drop’,
To develop the capacity of farmers & stakeholders

Major Components:

Rainfed Area Development (RAD): It develops an area-based approach for the conservation of natural resources, and regulates soil nutrients. Common resources are developed like a bank for grains, fodder, shredders for biomass, and a combined marketing initiative.
On-Farm Water Management (OFWM): For optimum utilisaton of water by promoting advanced on-farm water conservation equipment and technologies.
Soil Health Management: It promotes sustainable practices that preserve the health of soil based on a specific location and the type of crops.

Major Challenges in Sustainable Agriculture:

The budgetary allocation to NMSA is less. It is only 0.8 per cent of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare’s total budget.
SAP are knowledge-intensive techniques which require knowledge exchange among the farmers.
Capacity building among the different types of farmers.
SAPS are labour-intensive and difficult to adopt by medium to large farmers.

Conclusion:

Sustainable agriculture is a much needed alternative to conventional input-intensive agriculture, which in the long-term degrades the topsoil, results in declining groundwater levels, and reduces biodiversity. Sustainable agriculture practices in India refers to less resource-intensive farming solutions, greater diversity in crops and livestock, and farmers’ ability to adapt to local circumstances.