eChapters

Three fundamental aspects—slope, stream order, and land use/land cover (LULC)—are critical in understanding landscape dynamics. These factors shape the physical and hydrological characteristics of an area and significantly impact ecological functions, land development planning, and conservation initiatives. Reliable analysis and detailed mapping of these parameters are crucial for the responsible management of land and water resources.
Operation and maintenance of soil conservation structures encompass a variety of activities designed to reduce soil erosion, sustain soil quality, and enhance water absorption. Structures such as terraces, check dams, and gully plugs must be consistently monitored and managed to ensure optimal performance over time. Essential tasks include frequent assessments, clearing of blockages or sediment build-up, and timely repairs to safeguard their structural integrity and operational efficiency.
Soil conservation refers to a collection of methods aimed at preserving soil from erosion and deterioration. At its core, soil conservation recognizes the soil as a living, dynamic system. One of its primary principles is the regular return of organic material to the soil, supporting its biological activity and overall health. Soil conservation can be compared to preventive maintenance on a car. Just like changing the oil, replacing filters, and inspecting spark plugs helps avoid costly engine damage, taking proactive steps to conserve soil now ensures its long-term productivity and health. Preventive measures in soil conservation help safeguard this essential resource for future use.
Soil conservation is a “combination” of practices used to protect the soil from degradation. At its core, it involves recognizing soil as a vibrant, living ecosystem.
The countless organisms residing in the soil contribute significantly to its fertility and structure. These organisms decompose organic materials, release essential nutrients, and create pathways for air and water movement—crucial for soil health

3.1 Introduction

There is now latest national thinking going on to conserve the known sources of energy such as firewood, cow dung, agricultural waste, kerosene, oil etc. i.e. by limiting their conventional uses and to propagate the use of non conventional energy especially in the rural area. The large scale indiscriminate use of non commercial fuels fully in the rural areas are not only providing to be inefficient but also inadequate to cope with the growing rural energy demand caused by growing population and growing consciousness among rural people for a better way of life. Planned input of energy are, therefore urgently require to protect the environment and to cope with raising rural energy demand. In order to assess the widening gap between the supply and demand of commercial energy and indiscriminate use of non commercial fuels in rural areas, there is a need for various types of statistical or quantified information to be collected and analyzed in an objective manner and presented suitability so as to serve as a sound basis for taking policy decision to make an optimum utilization of commercial energy in a balanced manner. This will require conducting of survey in areas to be covered.

The statistical data may be collected by complete enumeration or by a sample survey. The earlier method is very cumbersome, time consuming, cost ineffective and requires an intensive development of manpower, if domains of study is quite large. Complete enumeration and sample surveys presuppose the existence of a certain minimum of facilities such as funds, professional personnel for planning the survey methodology and supervision of field operations, sufficiently qualified enumerators, sampling frames, machine tabulation equipment, transport and communication facilities etc. These facilities or combinations there of do not always exist to the extent needed for a complete enumeration survey. As such, sample survey is preferred to complete enumeration for ethic type of studies giving due importance to sampling error.

In the integrated energy planning, there is an objective to find out the present consumption pattern of energy for different end uses, shortages being experienced and people’s reaction to using alternate sources of energy is also enumerated.

The survey methods determine – incident, distribution and the interrelation among sociological variable and psychological variable. The sociological variable s consists of age, education, income and attitude, behavior, motivation, belief and knowledge about the problem.

A survey of farming systems and agricultural-based livelihood enterprises is a research method used to gather information about the different ways farmers organize their agricultural activities and how these activities contribute to their livelihoods. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the diverse farming practices, resource management strategies, and income-generating activities within a specific region or community.
Objectives
Identify and classify farming systems: This involves understanding the different types of farming practices prevalent in the area, such as crop-livestock systems, mixed farming, specialized cropping, agroforestry, etc. Classification may be based on factors like scale, technology used, crops grown, livestock raised, and integration with other enterprises. Assess resource use and management: This includes examining how farmers utilize natural resources like land, water, soil, and biodiversity. It also covers xmanagement practices like irrigation, fertilization, pest control, and soil conservation.
Analyze livelihood strategies: The survey investigates how agriculture contributes to the overall livelihoods of farming households. This includes income from crop and livestock production, as well as off-farm income sources. Evaluate the economic viability of agricultural enterprises: This involves assessing the profitability and sustainability of different farming activities. It may include analyzing production costs, market access, and value addition opportunities.

Not all the scientific problems demand the detection and establishment of causal relationship among natural phenomenon. Many of the social research problems seek to study the status quo rather than the relation between two or more natural phenomenon. Few of the impact assessment studies (which are kind of causal relationship studies to an extent) also demand for knowing the status quo before and after implementation of interventions. Many other studies demand for benchmark assessment to make policy decisions. Under such circumstances, survey research is a useful research method.

Weeds have specific characters which helps them to adapt to any stressful situation and successfully, compete with the crop. They have survival strategies which help them to overcome vagaries of nature like extreme cold, heat, drought, biotic stresses and soil abnormalities. Their most important characteristic is the ability to succeed in any adverse situation even in disturbed soils. The age old war between man and weeds makes it pertinent to understand the characteristics of weeds which make them better competitors in the field.

Abstract

This paper is the synthesis of researches of quaternary on the Chad lake basin, our field investigations, our previous palaeogeographic research underlined by the sédimentological analyses, ¹⁴C radiocarbon and thermoluninescence dating. The objective is to show that after the effects of geological fluctuation, paleoclimatic oscillations, the Chad lake basin experiences since historical times an increasingly drying up due to the combination of geographic factors such as its close position in the Sahara desert, centre of the climate dynamics and human activities. This situation frequently generates recurrent live conditions to which man has to face.

Abstract

Determining the optimum stocking rate for a grazing land is a key decision affecting the profitability and viability of a grazing system. Forage intake and subsequent performance is dependent on forage availability to the livestock on a daily basis.
Fixing stocking rate too low results in wastage of forage and loss in profit and too high results in lowered forage intake and livestock output thus results in diminished profits. Overgrazing occurs when the grazing pres-sure exceeds the carrying capacity of the land and would modify the physical properties of soil and ecosystem. Due to the overuse of the grazing land, vegetation cover declines and thus reduces the soil organic matter content and soil infiltration capacity. On farm field experiments were conducted in three farmer’s fields at dryland tracts of Tirupur district for a period of two years from September, 2009 to March, 2011 with the objective to assess the carrying capacity of silvipastoral farming system. Treatments were five silvipastoral systems viz.,Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus ciliaris, Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus ciliaris + Stylosanthes hamata, Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata, Acacia leucophloea + fodder sorghum + Pillipesara and Acacia leucophloea + Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara. One unit of Mecheri sheep of five ewes (female) and one ram (male) and two buffaloes were maintained in each location. Observations on carrying capacity, annual forage yield, utilization rate, average daily intake and average fodder requirement of sheep and Length of grazing season were made. The experimental results revealed that, among the different silvipastoral systems, rotational grazing of 39 numbers of sheep per ha of silvipasture land with Cenchrus setigerus + Stylosanthes hamata & fodder sorghum + Pillipesara system is found to be the best. This would imply relatively less pressure on land that would indicate sustaining the carrying capacity of grazing land without exerting pressure on natural resources.

The past development efforts in India center around individual approach and these efforts did not bring about sustained development of people in the respective areas. In view of this, the development of the people could not be harnessed to the fullest potential. Realizing this lacuna, the group based development efforts have come up in a big way across the country in the recent years. The Government, private organizations and also the NGOs are giving due importance for the promotion and establishment of Self Help Groups (SHGs) for addressing all developmental issues. As on today, there are more than 3.37 million SHGs across the country, Tamil Nadu is one of the pioneering states in the formation and promotion of women SHGs and about 4.41 lakh SHGs are functioning in the state. Among the SHGs formed, some of the SHGs are functioning well and sustain for a longer period and others did not come up to the expectation and they did not sustain for longer period. Hence, it was considered opportune time to find out the sustainability level of the SHGs and isolate factors for variation since there was no research back up.
 
Therefore, the study was undertaken to analyse the sustainability of mixed enterprises  related SHGS in Tamil Nadu with an intention to find out the extent of sustainability at different levels.  The study was conducted in Dharmapuri District of Tamil Nadu. Five blocks namely Dharmapuri, Harur, Morappur, Nallampalli, and Pennagaram were selected from the district based on maximum number of SHGs.

Agriculture is the most significant part of economies of all African countries and can therefore contribute towards major priority for eradication of hunger and poverty. It also forms the strong base for rapid industrialization, employment and environmental management.
N. KozanaDiaminiLuma, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission has emphasized that ‘the year 2014 – the year of Agriculture in Africa’ will be used as an opportunity to accelerate the drive for food security. The major thrust for that has to be on ensuring that the farmers make their profession on economic activity that generate well-being for all in a sustainable manner (1, 2). Africa will have a population of 2 billion people by 2050, the majority women and youth. This prediction and the climate change problem summarize the scale of agricultural challenge for them. Currently more than half of all people living in Africa depend on agriculture for all or part of their livelihood. *Based on Key Note address by the author at the First International Agri Business Conference at Mauritius, Africa : 25 – 28 September 2008
EVER GREEN REVOLUTION OR ECO AGRI REVOLUTION FOR AFRICA
Nearly all agree that Africa needs technology for farming comparable to the Green Revolution of Asia. In 2006, two major philanthropic foundations namely Gates Foundations & Rockefeller foundations joined in a joint venture called Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). They emphasized the importance of introducing African small fodder farmers to modern agricultural science.However, this was rejected strongly by some calling it “naivete” about the causes of hunger and warned that this approach

African agriculture is in crisis, and Africa’s farmland is losing its fertility at an alarming rate. Farmers grow the same crops in the same fields year. They don’t fertilize, and they don’t terrace their fields. When the soil wears out, the clear a new piece of land (wwww.npr.org). N. Kozana Diamini Luma, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission has emphasized that ‘the year 2014 – the year of Agriculture in Africa’ will be used as an opportunity to accelerate the drive for food security. The major thrust for that has to be on ensuring that the farmers make their profession on economic activity that generate wellbeing for all in a sustainable manner (1, 2).

In contrast to the traditional universities, agricultural universities have been entrusted with the Herculean task of technology dissemination at the grass root level such that the package of practices evolved by the agricultural scientists should reach out the end-users, viz. farmers , for adopting in the field, with consequent increment in the farm productivity and farmer’s income. This unique mandate has been assigned to agricultural universities on the pattern of land grant colleges of the United States. Such vision and trust, envisaged by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his devout lieutenants, herald creation of state agricultural universities (SAUs) in the early 1960s. The key role played by SAUs in the first green revolution and agricultural human resources development have been regarded as the milestones in the history of India post-independence, that made the country self-sufficient in food production and, in turn, to self reliance in milk, vegetables, fruits and inland fish production. Today, India has set fourth into commanding position as a global economic power, with primary and secondary sectors, viz. agriculture and industry, contributing modestly. At the current pace of the growth rate, I would not hesitate to predict that by the year 2020, we will accomplish the top lines both in terms of productivity and sustainability, by transforming hitherto deemed liability of population into a formidable asset of human resource capital.
Hunger-free World
Agriculture is a vital development tool for achieving the Millennium Development Goals that call for halving by 2015 the number of people, suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. We also note that more than 50% of the people in the world are small and resource-poor farmers and another 20% rural land less. The challenge is to transform this

In contrast to the traditional universities, agricultural universities have been entrusted with the Herculean task of technology dissemination at the grass root level such that the package of practices evolved by the agricultural scientists should reach out the end-users, viz. farmers , for adopting in the field, with consequent increment in the farm productivity and farmer’s income.

This unique mandate has been assigned to agricultural universities on the pattern of land grant colleges of the United States. Such vision and trust, envisaged by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his devout lieutenants, herald creation of state agricultural universities (SAUs) in the early 1960s. The key role played by SAUs in the first green revolution and agricultural human resources development have been regarded as the milestones in the history of India post-independence, that made the country self-sufficient in food production and, in turn, to self reliance in milk, vegetables, fruits and inland fish production.

1. Introduction

The agriculture sector in Asia and the Pacific plays a vital role in the rural economy, making significant contributions to both GDP and employment. This sector serves as a cornerstone for food production, economic growth and poverty reduction in the region. Understanding the importance of farming in the region’s rural economy, as well as the need for viable farming systems particularly for smallholder farms, is essential for sustainable development.

Importance of Farming in the Rural Economy

Farming has a substantial impact on the rural economy of Asia and the Pacific. It serves as a primary source of income and livelihood for rural populations, contributing significantly to the region’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The agricultural sector encompasses a wide range of activities, including crop production, livestock farming, fisheries, and forestry, providing diverse opportunities for economic development.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), farming accounts for 29 percent of the region’s GDP (FAO, 2021). This demonstrates the significant economic value that agriculture brings to the region, making it a crucial sector for sustainable development. The revenue generated from agricultural activities supports not only farmers but also other stakeholders in the value chain, including agro-industries, distributors, and exporters.

Conservation Agriculture

The agronomic measures for water conservation helps to control the evapotranspiration loss from soil and plant surface, reduces the splash effect of raindrops, checks topsoil erosion and runoff losses, permits a better intake of rainwater by improving the better soil physical environment and thereby conserves higher soil moisture for better plant growth and yield.

1. Mulching : It protects the top soil from erosion loss by controlling runoff, facilitates rainwater absorption by soil, increases the consumptive use of water by crops and hence the water use efficiency, regulates the hydrothermal regime of soil, reduces the evaporation component of the evapotranspiration, prevents soil crusting and plant nutritional losses and keep down the weed infestation. Dry soil mulch as created by stirring the soil surface with the inter-culturing implements helps to minimize evaporation loss from soil surface. Use of cover mulches like black polythene sheets or organic residues or crop stubbles on soil surface will act as barrier to reduce the evaporation losses. Post-rainy season crops (rabi crops) which live primarily on soil stored moisture derive more benefit from mulching.
2. Anti-evaporants : These are used to reduce the evaporation from the soil surface. Straw, sawdust, paddy husk, wood bark etc are used to arrest the evaporation from soil surface. Hexadecanol, a long-chain alcohol, is also used to retard the evaporation from soil surface. This chemical is resistant to microbial activity and degradation and remains active in the soil for more than a year. The main limitation in soil surface mulching is high cost involvement.

Role of Agriculture in Livelihood Systems

For the developing countries like India, where a majority of families, in both the farm and non-farm sectors, derive their livelihoods from agriculture, sustainability of agriculture cannot be discussed or even defined in isolation of the issue of livelihoods. Livelihood is defined as adequate stock and flow of food and cash with an individual or a family to meet its basic needs. Livelihood security then means secured ownership of, or access to, resources and income-earning activities, including reserves and assets to offset risks, ease shocks and meet contingencies. There are four principal ways of acquiring livelihoods by the rural households. First is the production-based livelihood. A large proportion of the small and marginal farmers gain livelihoods through production on small pieces of land. For these households, availability or access to inputs and improved methods of production are quite critical for their livelihoods. Second is the labour-based livelihood. Most of the small landholders and landless rural households derive livelihoods by selling their labour. For their livelihoods, demand for labour, wage rates and prices of food are the critical factors. Third is the exchange- or market- based livelihood. Those rural households which produce surplus food and non-food agricultural products or non-farm goods earn their livelihoods by selling these surpluses in the market. The marketing system for these products and relative prices of what they sell and what they buy, affect their livelihoods. The fourth set of livelihoods is transfer-based entitlements. The households without any income-earning asset or able-bodied person to work depend for their livelihoods on transfers from the government or other social organizations. Government’s social security and food assistance programmes are relevant for this group of rural households in fulfilling their livelihood requirements. The rural livelihood systems in the developing countries thus encompass a broad range of factors and depend on several macro sub- systems of the economy.

Agriculture has been the base of subsistence for human settlements on the planet earth. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), people in the developing world where the population increase is very rapid, may face hunger if the global food production does not increase by 50–60%. Contribution from developing countries and developed countries to world production in 1975 was about 38% and 62%, respectively. If yield increase is keeping pace with increasing population, mass hunger can escape. In the preindependence period, Indian agriculture was usually described as a gamble with monsoons and their failures resulted in widespread famine and misery. In the last few decades, Indian agriculture has made a remarkable progress even with increased population and decreased per capita availability of agricultural land. World population is projected to be over 8 billion by 2025 and nearly 10.5 billion by the end of next century. To maintain the status quo, food production needs to be doubled. Estimates by the FAO and WHO (1992) and the Hunger Project (1991) suggest that around 1 billion people in the world have diets that are ‘too poor to abstain the energy required for healthy growth of children and minimal activity of adults’. The causes are complex and it is not entirely the fault of overall availability of food. Modern agriculture begins on the research farm, where researchers have access to all types of inputs for crops at all the appropriate times. But, even the best performing farms cannot match the yields of researchers. For high productivity, farmers need to have access to the whole package – improved seeds, water, labour, capital or credit, fertilizers, pesticides and other developed technology. Many poorer farming households simply cannot adopt the whole package. Very often delivery systems are unable to supply them on time.

Introduction

India, only occupies 3.29 million km² bounded geographical areas, which forms 2.4% of the world’s land acreage area; it support over 15% of the world’s population. The population of India as on 1 March 2016 stood at 1332 billion. Thus, India supports about 1/ 6th of world population, 1/50th of world’s land acreage and 1/25th of world’s water resources. The country as well has a livestock population of 500 million, which is about 20% of the world’s absolute livestock population. More than half of these are cattle, forming basic the backbone of Indian agriculture. The absolute accessible water assets of the country are adjourned as 1086 km³. Total bounded breadth of alone Eastern India occupies 28% of country’s absolute breadth of 328.73 m ha. The share of forest area to geographical area ranges from 33 to 54% for North Eastern hill states, in Assam. The per capita land availability decreased from 0.50 ha in 1981 to 0.33 ha in 2000 due to proportionate increase of land use for non-agriculture purpose and increasing population density. Rice, maize, wheat, rapeseeds, groundnut, pulses, sugarcane, potato, jute, jowar and bajra are the major crops grown in this region amongst which rice is the principle crop. India has a long history of agriculture since civilization. Then the agriculture was based on traditional practices and the local varieties were being grown without much care. Population densities usually didn’t pose much difficulty to supply food grains. Rice both under low/up land ecosystem is primarily grown under rainfed conditions having production constraints of entirely opposite in nature. Very low productivity under rainfed eco-system is mainly due to yield depressing factors caused by biotic stresses across the rice ecology, either resulted from excess or deficit water due to uneven and erratic distribution of annual rainfall. The cropping intensities in the states like Assam, Bihar, MP, Orissa, UP and West Bengal are 137.7, 137.8, 125.6, 154.6, 148.6 and 159.6 per cent, respectively. This indicated that a vast majority of lands remain fallow during dry (winter/rabi)season due to lack of proper technologies, which are under rainfed conditions, specifically lack of available moisture and or rainfall during this period. That is more than half of the arable land remains fallow during rainless period. Increasing cropping intensities in rainfed uplands is not easily achievable but there is great potential of intensification of cropping in rainfed lowland by utilizing natural resources and conserved residual moisture. Pulses like black gram, green gram, lentil, lathyrus, chick pea and oilseeds like linseed, groundnut, and rapeseed could not only increase the cropping intensities but also come forward to increase national productivity. Adoption of improved crop cultivars, cropping system, increasing cropping intensities, precision farming can hold good to get out of this situation where whole system is to be considered.

Sustainability in agriculture is the prime importance for maintains its productivity particularly for crops over time and space. Sustainable agriculture is a system of farming as well as a philosophy which has its roots in a set of values that reflects an awareness of both ecological and socialrealities. It includes design and management procedures that work with natural processes to conserve all resources for maintaining or improving farm profitability keeping least waste and environmental damage.

The influence of environment on Indian farming revealed that future agricultural growth and productivity will have to occur simultaneously with environmental sustainability. The environmental challenges (land degradation, groundwater depletion, water logging and excessive use of chemical inputs) are posing problems for the future of Indian agriculture. Organic farming included in the policies has emphasized the sustainability in agriculture. Various other approaches and policy instruments, however, will be required to address these problems. The shift from input-intensive to sustainable, particularly organic farming is a difficult task as it involves a number of policy measures dealing with a variety of issues ranging from the transfer of information and technology to the development of markets. Another difficult task, and perhaps more difficult, relates to marginal and small farmers – which comprise a substantial part of Indian agriculture. Although, the marginal and small farmers considered as organic by ‘default’, severe resource constraints makes the shift to the modern sense of organic farming prohibitive.

The Green Revolution started in the early 1960s that led to the attainment of self-sufficiency in food grain production. This has been considered as the greatest agricultural transformation in the history of humankind. The Green Revolution contributed to widespread poverty reduction, averted hunger for millions of people, and avoided the conversion of thousands of hectares of land into agricultural cultivation.

Introduction Large cardamom is an important cash crop cultivated in Sikkim. It is also cultivated in Darjeeling district of West Bengal and some parts of North-eastern state like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur. It is a low volume, high value non-perishable crop grown organicallyat different altitudes under the trees. The State produces about 4,970 tonnes annually from an area of 23,312 hectares (Spice board, 2021). Among the four districts of Sikkim, North and East Sikkim district contributes largest in terms of area and production of large cardamom (GoS, 2016). Off-late, climate change has become a major concern for the large cardamom growers as many researchers reported its contribution to the decline of its production. Sikkim, as Himalayan states, is endowed with varied agro-climate ranging from tropical in the South to alpine in the North. Shrestha et al. (2010) reported that warming in the Himalayas was between 0.15°C and 0.60°C per decade in the last three decades. Seetharam (2012) revealed that in Gangtok, there is a decreasing trend in maximum temperature while an increasing trend in minimum temperature. The study also depicted the decreasing trend of annual rainfall amount in the study area. In a recent study, Kumar et al. (2020) reported that the warming was more prominent in the last decades in Gangtok and Tadong station, better reflected in the minimum temperature with varied precipitation across the observed period from 1961 2017.