Appraisal of Natural Resource Database for Alternate Agricultural Land Use at Village Level Under Saline Environment-A Case Study from Sagar Island, India

摘要

The study deals with village level land use planning for Sagar Island, West Bengal, India; conceived through the integration of various factors like available land and water resources as well as socio-economic factors viz. land holding sizes, social obligation and economic conditions of farmers. The study was conducted during the period 2002 to 2005, in Jeebantala village of Sagar block (South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal) which lies in between 88 °0737.2 and 88 °0831.2 E longitudes and 22 °4138.4 and 22 °4235.4 N latitudes covering an area of 146.42 ha. Four soil series identified through detailed soil survey were classified as Inceptisols and Entisols. They were evaluated for land capability classification and soil site suitability for rice, potato, sunflower, chilli, grass pea and fodder grass (Dinanath). Socio-economic study of the area revealed that marginal (<1 ha) group dominated the farming community sharing 77.25% of total population. Based on soil-site suitability evaluation of different crops, results obtained from crop experiments and constraints perceived by different group of farmers, various rice based crop sequences were formulated. Rainfed rice-chilli and rainfed rice-sunflower were suggested for saline soils where as rainfed rice-potato and rainfed rice-grasspea were suggested for non-saline soils.