Indian Agriculture and Sustainabilityby Dharmendra Kapri | 28-02-2017 05:08 |
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Agriculture is one of the main economic activities of man. It is a vital source for all round progress of our country India. It fulfils almost all the basic requirements of human beings. Green revolution in 1960 s and 70 s has changed the economic scenario of agriculture in India. Though it did increase crop production many folds in the country, it was achieved at the cost of intensive use of irrigation water, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, costly modern agriculture equipments and other inputs. Moreover, modern agriculture practice has resulted in many other related problems such as depletion of soil fertility, increase in soil salinization, soil and water pollution, nutrient imbalance, emergence of new pests and diseases and above all the environmental degradation. conventional agricultural practices, with the use of locally available good quality seeds, compost, manure and biofertilisers were more ecofriendly as compared to modern agriculture which is causing more ecological damage. The problem is day by day aggravating by the constant rise in human population. At this time rate it is expected that Indian population may reach around 1.3 billion by the end of 2020. Therefore, it is the prime concern of the present day agricultural scientists to develop environmentally sustainable techniques to produce enough food to satisfy the hunger of more than a billion people. In its broadest meaning, sustainable agriculture is a form of agriculture which aims to meet the needs to present generation without endangering the resources base of future generation and at the same time without causing environmental degradation. Sustainability is the outcomes of the collective decision-making that arises from interaction among users and managers of natural resources. Sustainable agriculture may, therefore, be defined as the management of renuable resources including landscapes, watershed, agro-ecological regions, lakes, rivers and plant genetic resources and ecosystems without causing environmental degradation to provide food and livelihood for present and future generations. Sustainable agriculture is also known by the names of Eco-farming, Organic-farming, Natural-farming or Permaculture. The term "Sustainable Development" was first mentioned in the 1987 World Development Report and lateron adopted in 1992 in the Earth Summit held at Rio. Since then, different countries and societies have started observing strict environmental standards in developing advance technologies in the field of agriculture. The Indian Council of Agriculture Research(ICAR) has also taken up the idea of sustainable development of agriculture in India.
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