eChapters

Conflict represents an inevitable and potentially constructive dimension of community mobilization that emerges when individuals and groups with different interests, values, perspectives, or needs interact in pursuit of shared or competing goals. Rather than viewing conflict as purely destructive or problematic, effective community mobilization requires sophisticated understanding of conflict dynamics and skilled application of management strategies that can transform disagreements into opportunities for learning, innovation, and strengthened relationships that enhance collective capacity and democratic participation. The complexity of contemporary community challenges requires bringing together diverse stakeholders with varying backgrounds, experiences, priorities, and approaches to problem-solving, creating natural conditions for disagreement and tension that must be navigated skillfully to maintain group cohesion while harnessing the creative potential that emerges from diverse perspectives and approaches. Understa

Introduction

There is a widespread degradation of natural resource, e.g., soil erosion, nutrient loss, water-logging, salinity, alkalinity, acidity, decline in soil organic carbon (SOC) content, ground water depletion and micronutrient depletion. The major causes are washing away of topsoil and organic matter due to water erosion, intensive deep tillage and inversion tillage, dismally low levels of fertilizer application, mining and other commercial activities, faulty agricultural practices, no or low use of organics, indiscriminate use of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides etc. Other cause is loss of organic matter with higher temperatures, which increase rate of microbial decomposition of organic matter due to adverse effect of climate change. Climate change due to global warming as a result of increased concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere is a well-established fact. Impacts of climate change are experienced throughout the world. Increases in global mean temperature, rise in sea-level, and occurrence of extreme events are the consequences of climate change. These changes may deplete the SOC pool and soil structural stability, increase soil’s susceptibility to water runoff and erosion, disrupt cycles of water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and other elements, and cause adverse impacts on biomass productivity, biodiversity and the environment. Climate change is likely to have a variety of impacts on soil quality. In order to restore soil quality, enhance productivity, it is of utmost importance to focus on conservation agriculture practices on long-term basis. Conservation Agriculture (CA) is gaining importance as an alternative to conventional agriculture.

Introduction

The Indo-Gangetic Plain is one of the world’s major foodgrain producing regions. The Indian states falling under this region, viz. Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, are also the major rice-wheat growing states spread over 10.5 million hectares in the country. During the past 30 years, agricultural production growth in this region has been able to keep pace with population demand for food in the country mainly due to adoption of green revolution technologies inducing yield growth, followed by area expansion. But this opportunity is ceasing very fast due to limited scope for increasing the availability of arable land and natural resources. The other issue is the conservation of the basic resources of land and water for sustainability of agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It is generally believed that the rice-wheat system has strained the natural resources in this region and more inputs are required to attain the same yield levels (Swarup and Singh, 1989; Kumar and Yadav, 1993; Lal et al., 2004). It is, therefore, imperative now to promote alternative technologies that would help conserve the much needed but gradually depleting natural resources while boosting productivity growth in the long-run by maintaining soil health and production environment. As a part of this strategy, conservation agriculture and resource conserving technologies play a major role in sustaining and enhancing the productivity of the rice-wheat system at a lower cost of production.

Introduction

Intensive soil tillage, burning of crop residues and over use of fertilizer and irrigation water under current agricultural practices has accelerated the pace of degradation in Indian agriculture. Intensive soil tillage increases soil erosion and nutrient runoff into nearby waterways. Crop residue burning resulting in loss of plant nutrients and release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. Imbalanced use of chemical fertilizer leads to soil compaction, slows down the fertilizer utilization rate and contaminates the local environment. Increasing demand of irrigation water causes water shortage and harms the environment in several ways including increased salinity, nutrient pollution, and the degradation of flood plains and wetlands. In the face of these management and environmental challenges, there is a need to formulate such agricultural practices which improve the productivity of natural resources as well as of external inputs and help to prevent soil degradation. Conservation agriculture (CA) practices such as reduced tillage, residue retention and proper crop rotations offer such solutions. CA also helps in making agricultural systems more resilient to climate change and safeguard ecosystem services.

Introduction

India agriculture is now at turning point as we have travelled a long way after the advent of green revolution. Over the past four to five decades our strategies, policies and actions were guided by goals of ‘self-sufficiency’ in foodgrains production via green revolution. Indian agriculture has been successful in achieving increased food grains production albeit at a low level of satisfaction. While the mission of increasing foodgrains production stands somehow achieved, these gains were accompanied by widespread problems of resource degradation and high factor productivity, which now pose a serious challenge to the continued ability to meet the demand of an increasing population and lifting our people above the poverty line (Tan et al., 2010). Indian agriculture has reached a point where it must seek new directions – those by way of strategies, policies and actions which must be adopted to move forward addressing sustainable intensifications. The past strategies to increase food grains production, however, have resulted in massive exploitation of natural resources, contributing to unsustainable growth; there is need to change this approach in the future. This will call for strategies, which are different than the ones we adopted in the ‘green revolution’ era. High levels of fertilizer use and decreasing resource use-efficiency are increasingly contributing to groundwater pollution and increased emissions of green-house gases (GHGs) (Gupta, 2004). High level uses of pesticides in many areas have become a major health hazard. Thus, with continuously deteriorating resources, widespread problem of soil and water contamination and eroding ecological foundation, sustainability of agriculture is becoming highly questionable (Conway and Barbier, 1990). There is need to seriously debate on the strategies required to ensure that agriculture continues to play a critical role in the overall development.

Introduction

The challenge of increased food production to meet food security needs still persists 50 years after the start of the Green Revolution as population growth continues to increase in many developing countries. There appears to be no alternative but to increase agricultural productivity and the associated individual factor productivities (such as water, labor, nutrients, energy and capital) to meet the food demand by 2050 and to alleviate poverty and hunger. Thus, needs technological initiatives for further agricultural intensification. But already happening negative effect of crop production intensification on essential natural resources such as soil, water, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services has forced agriculture stakeholders to search for novel initiatives that focus on sustainable production optimization rather than just intensification. Furthermore increased food supply is a necessity though not sufficient for eliminating hunger and poverty. What is important is who produces the food, has access to the technology and knowledge to produce it, and has the purchasing power to acquire it. Of the developing world’s 5.5 billion people, 3 billion live in rural areas – nearly half of humanity. Of these rural inhabitants, an estimated 2.5 billion are in households involved in agriculture, and 1.5 billion are in smallholder households (World Bank, 2008 and Herren, 2010). Poor farmers need low-cost and readily available technologies and practices to increase local food production and to raise their income. At the same time, land and water degradation is increasingly posing a threat to food security and the livelihoods of rural people who generally live on degradation-prone lands. There are several other key issues while relating the situation to Indian context.

Conservation agriculture is an approach to managing agroecosystems for improved and sustained productivity, increased profits and food security while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) defines conservation agriculture as a farming system that promotes maintenance of a permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance (i.e., no tillage), and diversification of plant species.

Conservation agriculture (CA) defined as minimal soil disturbance (no-till) and permanent soil cover (mulch) combined with rotations is a recent agricultural management system that is gaining popularity in many parts of the world. Cultivation is defined by the Oxford English dictionary as “the tilling of land”, “the raising of a crop by tillage” or “to loosen or break up soil”. Other terms used in this dictionary include “improvement or increase in (soil) fertility”. All these definitions indicate that cultivation is synonymous with tillage or ploughing.

The other important definition that has been debated and defined in many papers is the word “sustainable”. The Oxford dictionary defines this term as “capable of being borne or endured, upheld, defended, maintainable”. Something that is sustained is “kept up without intermission or flagging, maintained over a long period”. This is an important concept in today’s agriculture since the human race will not want to compromise the ability of its future offspring to produce their food needs by damaging the natural resources used to feed the population today.

8.1 Introduction

Conservation agriculture (CA) is an approach to regenerative agriculture and land management practices based on three interlinked principles: (1) continuous minimum mechanical soil disturbance using no-tillage or reduced tillage based crop cultivation, (2) maintenance of permanent soil cover using crop residues and cover crops and (3) diversification of cropping system using economically, environmentally and socially adapted crop rotation including legume crops and cover crops coupled with other complementary agronomic management practices (FAO, 2014).

Introduction

The Indian agriculture is very complex and carrying out multi-functionalities of providing food, nutrition and ecological security besides employment and livelihood for over 700 million people. Indeed, India has made a marvelous achievement in attaining self-sufficiency in food grain production after the induction of Green Revolution which eventually resulted in maintaining all-time high buffer stock in warehouses of our country. Such rosy picture in production trends turned to be bleak in the past few years. There are various reasons behind this. Shrinking resources of prime lands, deforestation and accelerated erosion, deterioration of soil physical environment, increasing waterlogging and salinity in canal irrigated areas, declining water table in well-irrigated areas, poor management of rainwater, lower efficiency of inputs such as water, fertilizers and agrochemicals, rapid industrialization coupled with pollution and environmental degradation and hazards have aggravated the problem. At the same time, increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses (GHG), of which the most common is carbon dioxide (CO₂), is the primary cause of global warming and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) estimates that the current greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentrations are 30% more than the pre-industrial level. C is accumulating in the atmosphere at a rate of 3.5 Pg (Pg = 1015 g or billion tons) per annum, the largest proportion of which resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural production. Under such circumstance, there is an imperative need to produce more from less arable land and water through meticulous management of basic agricultural resources such as soil, water and biological inputs.

Introduction

The green revolution is exemplified by too much adoption of high soil disturbance, modern varieties, energy exhaustive technologies, high amount of capital investment and simplification of farming systems (Meeus, 1993), resulting in uniform and featureless landscapes (Nassauer and Westmacott, 1987) in the most intensively farmed arable areas. In post-green revolution epoch, we had experienced a period of remarkable escalation in food productivity, despite rising land values and increasing land scarcity. Farmers from both developing and developed countries get exposed to several production constraints for achieving a sustainable, cost-effective and assured return from their field. Depending upon the circumstances and the scale of farm activities, farmers face varying degrees of climate risk, biotic invasion, and economic uncertainty. Thus, from the context of economical ambiguities, volatile food prices, social pressure to buffer ups and downs of agricultural production and achieving food security for ever growing population and curtailing poverty, farmers must be equipped with novel cultural practices to achieve a sustainable and assured cost-effective grain production. Research experiments throughout the globe found that the principal indicators for unsustainability of agricultural systems are: (1) intensive tillage induced decrement of soil organic matter (OM), structural degradation of soil, accelerated water and wind erosion, reduced water infiltration rates, surface sealing and crusting, soil compaction, (2) insufficient return of organic materials into soil, and (3) monocropping.

Introduction

Persistent use of conventional farming practices based on extensive tillage, especially when combined with removal or in-situ burning of crop residues, has magnified soil erosion losses and swiftly degraded soil resource base. One of the glaring examples for the aforementioned statement is the ‘Dust Bowl’ in the U.S during 1930s in Great plains, where 91 M ha of land was degraded by severe soil erosion (Hobbs, 2007).

One of the primary challenges of our time is to feed growing and more demanding world population with reduced external inputs and minimal environmental impacts (nature paper). Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a set of management practices for sustainable agricultural production without excessively disturbing the soils, while protecting it from the processes of soil degradation like erosion, compaction, aggregate breakdown, loss of organic matter, leaching of nutrients, and processes that are accentuating due to anthropogenic interactions in the presence of extremes of weather and management practices. The organic materials conserved through this practice are decomposed slowly, and much of materials are incorporated into the surface soil layer, thus reducing the liberation rate of carbon as CO₂ into the atmosphere. In the total balance, carbon is sequestered in the soil, and turns the soil into a net sink of carbon. So, CA enhance soil health by improving soil aggregation, reducing compaction through promotion of biological tillage, increasing surface soil organic matter and carbon content, and moderating soil temperature and weed suppression. CA reduces cost of cultivation, saves time, increases yield through timelier seeding/planting, reduces pest and diseases through stimulation of biological diversity, and reduces green house gas emissions.

Machinery development, refinement and adoption for a range of soil and cropping situations will be fundamental in any success to promote conservation agriculture practices. Agricultural machinery or tools, which support conservation agriculture generally refer to the cultivation systems with minimum or zero tillage and in-situ management of crop residues. Minimum tillage is aimed at reducing tillage to the minimum necessary that would facilitate favorable seedbed condition for satisfactory establishment of crop. Zero tillage is however an extreme form of minimum tillage. With the development of direct drilling machines, almost all research work was attempted to define the responses of direct-drilled seeds in relation to soil micro-environments. Different designs of direct drilling machines viz. zero till drill, no till plant drill, strip till drill, and rotary slit no till drill have been developed with controlled traffic measures for energy efficient and cost-effective seeding of crops without tillage. In this paper various issues, challenges and prospects of conservation agriculture in India has been discussed.

Green Revolution has increased food grain production by four fold since 1950–51 with the adoption of HYVs, intense input use, extensive tillage, burning of residues and irrigation. The intense cultivation has lead to degradation of natural resource such as soil, water, vegetation etc. In this context, globally conservation agriculture (CA) has opened a new paradigm as it has potential for higher resource use efficiency, water productivity and climate change mitigation through its key principles. Total area and percentage of total area under no tillage practised as part of conservation agriculture in different continents is given in Table 92.

Conservation Agriculture Conservation agriculture is an approach to managing agro-ecosystems, for improved and sustained productivity, increased profits and food security while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment. It is a set of technologies, including minimum disturbance, permanent soil cover, diversified crop rotations, and integrated weed management (Reicosky and Saxena, 2007; Hobbs et al., 2008, Friedrich et al., 2012).

Conservation agriculture is an approach to managing agroecosystems for improved and sustained productivity, increased profits and food security while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations defines conservation agriculture as a farming system that promotes maintenance of a permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance (i.e. no tillage), and diversification of plant species.

9.1 Introduction

According to FAO guideline, “Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an approach to managing agricultural ecosystems for enhanced and sustained productivity, improved returns, and food security while preserving and enhancing the resource base and the environment.”

The terms “conservation agriculture” (CA) and “resource-conserving technologies” (RCTs) are not synonyms, but sometimes both words are used for a similar meaning. Therefore, the practices which improve resource or input-use efficiency are termed as RCTs. RCT is a wider term than CA which is used for nitrogen-efficient varieties; fuel-, money-, and time-efficient techniques; and improvement in plot-level water productivity including CA.

Introduction

Future agricultural production potential is in danger due to the existing cropping system, characterized by irresponsible chemical utilization, extensive tillage, monoculture, and soil health degradation. Consequently, a significant challenge for modern agriculture lies in ensuring adequate nourishment for the entire world’s population while also safeguarding the environment. The intensification of agricultural practices negatively impacts vital natural resources like soil, water, air, and biodiversity throughout various developmental stages. While the conventional cropping system have enhanced crop productivity, its consequences including land degradation, resource depletion, reduced organic matter insoil, draught, soil salinity, erosion, and climate change pose significant global threats (Tomar et al. 2014; Yadav et al. 2014; Mandal et al. 2020; Rani et al. 2021).

Introduction
The richness of a country can be measured by its biological diversity. It is essential to both human existence and financial security. The most basic concept of biodiversity is expressed by the diversity of creatures. Biodiversity is represented by the supplies of food, clothing, shelter, and medicines provided by plants; by the sources of food, assistance, wild life, and human resource efficiency provided by animals; and by the patterns of variation seen in the microbiological world. More than 20,000 kinds of ants, 3,000,000 species of beetles, 28,000 species of fish, and almost 20,000 species of orchids would be hard for the average person to believe.
Definitions
• The collection and interplay of genes, species, and ecological diversity in a specific location and time is known as biodiversity. Different genes, species, habitats, and their relative abundance are all included in the phrase biodiversity.
• The portion of nature known as biodiversity comprises the genetic variations between individuals of the same species as well as the variety and richness of all plant and animal species at various spatial dimensions, such as a region, a nation, and the entire planet.
• “The diversity of life, which encompasses ecosystem or community diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity, and includes the entire range of variety and variability within and among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur,” is another definition for it.

Abstract

Many people’s food and livelihood security depend on the sustained management of various biological resources that are important for food and agriculture. Agro biodiversity is the result of the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and management systems and practices used by culturally diverse peoples. The management of agro biodiversity by the indigenous communities is for a variety of reasons. The land use types, land use stages, aspect, soil fertility, availability of water and quality seed of crops etc. are essential variables which an indigenous farmer considers while cultivating a diversity of traditional landraces in the farm for food security. India is the largest producer of many kinds of millets, which are often referred as coarse cereals. However, realizing the nutrient richness of these grains they are now considered as nutria-cereals. Small millets, as a group includes several grain crops namely finger millet (ragi), proso millet, barnyard millet, italian millet, kodo millet and little millet. In the four decades since 1961, the area under millets declined by nearly 50% from about 18 million hectares to about 9 million hectares. During this time, production of millets declined from about 8.8 million tons to about 7.2 million tons; a decline of 18%. Tremendous decrease in area and production is directly or indirectly resulted in the loss of agro biodiversity of these crops as these crops are grown on marginal or rainfed areas without any fertilizers. Therefore, more emphasis should be given for maintaining bio diversity of these highly rich crops by increasing area under these minor millets and developing proper agro techniques for increasing its productivity.