Crop Diversification -Its Role Towards Sustainability and Profitability

摘要

The spectacular paradigm of Indian food production through green revolution has given rise to second generation problems like rising or lowering of water table,nutrient imbalance,soil degradation,salinity,resurgence of pests and diseases,environmental pollution and decline in farm profit.Crop diversification shows lot of promise in alleviating these problems through fulfilling the basic needs and regulating farm income,withstanding weather aberrations,controlling price fluctuation,ensuring balanced food supply,conserving natural resources,reducing the chemical,fertiliser and pesticide loads and creating employment opportunity.It has also regional bearing as indicated by promising 30 diversified cropping systems identified by PDCSR for 20 agro-eco-regions of the country.These are:rice-potato-sunflower (22.6t wheat yield equivalent (WEY)/ha),rice-potato-wheat,rice-potato-groundnut,summer groundnut-potato-pearlmillet (fodder),rice-chickpea,rice-berseem and rice-potato-onion (26.1 REY/ha)in Punjab;rice-wheat cnetre dot sorghum *cowpea (11.8 t rice yield equivalent (REY)/ha)at R.S.Pura;Maize +soybean-wheat (21.4 t REY/ha)at Palampur;rice-vegetables pea-wheat-green gram (16t REY/ha)at Modipuram,Meerut;rice-wheat-green gram (10.9 t REY/ha)at west coast of Navsari;rice-maize (cob)(26.4 t REY/ha)at north Konkan coast;rice-tomato-lady's finger (48.8 t REY/ha)at east coast of Bhubaneswar;rice-rice-soybean (16 t REY/ha)at Cauveri Delta of Tamil Nadu;pearl millet-potato-groundnut/green gram at S.K.Nagar;rice-berseem (13 t WEY/ha)with maximum energy (18.6X 10~6 K Cal/ha)and nutrient use productivity (45 kg grain/kg nutrient)and rice-tomato (11 t WEY/ha)with maximum water use productivity (98.4 kg grain/ha-m water)at Raipur;soybean-wheat/chickpea/lentil with the highest productivity,black gram-linseed with the highest net return and soybean-lentil with the highest nutrient use productivity (29.6 kg grain/kg nutrient at Sehore;soybean-wheat (7.4 t WEY/ha )with the highest profitability and nutrient use productivity (23 kg grain/kg nutrient applied)and pigeonpea-wheat with the highest water use productivity (105 kg grain/ha-cm water)at Indore.Frontline demonstrations on oilseed based cropping systems in different regions also showed 25-30% yield advantage with only 25% extra cost with improved practice over the farmers'practice.Thus,region-wise crop diversification can play a vital role towards sustainability and profitability of our agricultural production.