Vol. 10, Issue 6 (2021)

Author(s):
MP Singh and Ram Narayan Meena

Abstract:
The basic challenge for sustainable agriculture is to make best use of available biophysical and human resources. But growth being at the centre-stage of the policy agenda of almost all countries in the world has led to fast depletion of natural resources. Land and water constitute two important renewable resources extensively used in agricultural sector. The sustainable farming and diversification of agriculture is an alternate way for the regeneration and conservation of land and water. The present paper attempts to study if diversification can ensure sustainability in agriculture. For this purpose, secondary data at two points of time 2014-15 and 2015-16 are used. It is observed that area under coarse cereals has declined from 2.10 to 1.76 per cent. For rest of crops it has increased and in case of sugarcane it is constant. The index values for the country as a whole reveals the fact that there is crop concentration in favour of fruits and vegetables. At the state level, sustainable farming and crop diversification is found to be highest in Andhra Pradesh followed by West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Rest of the states has concentration of crops with highest in Odisha followed by Madhya Pradesh. These evidences suggest that the use of organic manures like farmyard manure, vermicompost and poultry manure along with biofertilizers could be a key factor for achieving and maintaining high level of production in high value crops and crop sequences as sustainable farming and crop diversification. Therefore, an investigation entitled “The Impact of Sustainable Farming in Improving Household Food Security of Marginal Farmers in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains of India” was carried out at Varanasi in Inceptisol soil between 2014-15 and 2015-16 to compare organic and chemical fertilizer nutrient inputs packages in rice and maize-based cropping sequence. Pooled data analysis revealed that the application of 100% RDN through organic manures as 1/3 farmyard manure (FYM) + 1/3 Trichoderma compost + 1/3 Vermi compost (VC) + Azotobacter/Rhizobium + PSB (M₂) had the highest rice equivalent grain yield (system productivity), production efficiency, as well as net monetary return and profitability in different rice and maize-based cropping sequence. Among the different cropping sequences maize-chickpea sequence had higher value with respect to system productivity, production efficiency and economic efficiency. However, rice-mustard sequence proved superior with respect to land use efficiency. The different cropping sequences differ with respect to nutrient uptake, e.g., maize-frenchbean had the highest removal of N, P and K than the rest of cropping sequence, which was significantly superior to the rest of the sequences. The organic nutrition with organic manures along with biofertilizers (M₂) proved superior due to its visible favorable effect on soil health with respect to nutrient status and microbial count and this indicates the utilization of this low-cost but long-term beneficial practice under high-intensity cropping for sustainable crop production.