eChapters

Management is the coordination and administration of tasks to achieve a goal. Management is a built-in function of business. It is essentially a decision-making process based on information and experience, in order to achieve desired goals and objectives. It involves creating an internal environment. It is the management which puts into use the various factors of production. Therefore, it is the responsibility of management to create such conditions which are conducive to maximum efforts so that people are able to perform their task efficiently and effectively.

Project appraisal technique gives details of cost and return of the proposed business. It involves investment of huge amount of capital. There are different project appraisal technique but the most common one is investment analysis or capital budgeting. With this, we can evaluate economic feasibility of different projects.

Project evaluation is a systematic and objective assessment of an ongoing or completed project. The aim is to determine the relevance and level of achievement of project objectives, development effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. It is a time bound exercise that attempt to access, systematically and objectively, the relevant / performance and success of a programme / project.

Project monitoring is the process of keeping a close eye on the entire project management life cycle and ensuring project activities are on the right track. It is a continuous function that aims primary to provide functionaries with required feedback and early indication of progress or lack of their achievements of intended results.

It is a process by which a act of predetermined activities is carried out in a planned manner, with a view to achieve certain establish objectives.

To implement a project means to carry out activities proposed with the aim to achieve project objectives and deliver results and outputs. It is a highly complex process and it involves a relationship among several system and variables

Stakeholder is an individual or group that has an interest in any decision or activity of an organization. A stakeholder is a member of groups without whose support the organizationwould cease to exist. Stakeholders are important to every project. Stakeholders are very important because they can have a positive or negative influence on the project with their decisions. A stakeholder is either an individual, group or organization who is impacted by the outcome of a project.

The word market is derived from the latin word “marcatus” which means “merchandise or trade or a place where business is conducted “. The term market has been widely used in various means, such as:

• A place or a building where commodities are bought and sold (e.g. Super market)

Designing is a creative activity. Think of fashion designers or interior decorators, who design clothes or decorate homes. Think of the people who design sports cars or bikes, or the interiors of fancy hotels or corporate offices. They take simple things like fabric, or steel, or plastic and using colors create things that are attractive, useful and a pleasure to live with. Designing a project is equally creative - selecting inputs and managing them in a certain way to achieve objectives.

A well planned projects requires pre-feasibility study to explore the opportunity to find out problems, avenues of co-ordination etc. A government being a regulation spells out priotize for national and regional economy and by the frameworks for resource allocation.

Agricultural project is an investment activity in which financial resources are expended to create capital assets that produce benefits over an extended period of time. Projects are the building blocks of investment plan. The whole complex of activities in the undertaking that uses resources to gain benefits constitutes the agricultural project.

The word mulch was coined by Wagganor in 1960. It is derived from the German word ‘molsch’ means “easy to decay,” and mulches have widely been used for vegetable production since ancient times (Lightfoot 1994). Therefore the term mulching refers to the practice of covering the soil surface with different organic and inorganic materials, known as mulch materials to reduce moisture loss, balance wide variations in diurnal soil temperatures especially in the root zone, control weeds, insect-pests and diseases and finally enhance crop yield (Nalayini 2007; Kader et al. 2019).

Increasing population, declining natural resources, changing climate and political stability are the major threat to our food, nutritional as well as environmental security. It is expected that India’s population will boom to 1.5 billion by 2030 and to feed them we need approximately 341mt food grain including 315 mt cereals and 26mt pulses) (Kumar et al., 2016).

Due to continuous pressure on our food security even after independence, the cultivation has been expanded to marginal and sub marginal lands that are prone to different types of erosion. Though the rainfed farming is based on the erratic and uneven rainfall, it contributes nearly 50% food grain, 90% oilseeds and pulses and 65% cotton production.

Rainfed agriculture occupies about 1.22 billion hectare (Bha) area worldwide, which is about 82% of total area (1.5 Bha) under agriculture (Yadav et al., 2006) and contributes nearly 58% to the global food basket. It is practiced under a wide variety of agro-climatic, edaphic and socio-economic conditions and globally, rainfed agriculture accounts for more than 95% of farmed land in sub-Saharan Africa, 90% in Latin America, 75% in the Near East and North Africa; 65% in East Asia and 60% in South Asia (Singh et al., 2018). 

Drought is a recurrent feature of climate or climatic anomaly or weather related natural disaster. It occurs when the precipitation remains deficient over an extended period of time, usually for a season or more and affects water shortage in water bodies, streams, soil moisture, ground water etc. resulting into low crop production and economic performance of large regions or entire country. Drought occurs in virtually all regions varying its severity, low and high from regions to regions.

Land, water and weather are natural resources that are critical for survival. Modern agriculture requires precise information on various agro-climatic parameters like soil, crop, climate and water resources for formulating efficient agricultural planning. Out of these, water is considered most scarce input in agriculture because its availability is reducing drastically for agriculture as well as drinking purposes. Besides, declining water tables and deteriorating quality of water resources caused pollution and sewage and effluents have further multiplied the problems.

Out of 329 m ha geographical area in the country, 187.8 m ha or 53% is affected by various forms of degradation process which include 148.9 m ha affected by water erosion, 13.5 m ha by wind erosion, 13.8 m ha by chemical deterioration and 11.6 m ha by physical deterioration. The annual loss of topsoil is nearly 16.0 t/ha/year resulted in to 8.4 m t/year total nutrient loss. 

Bread, cloth and house (Roti, Kapra and Makan) are the basic need of human life and linked directly with agriculture because agriculture provides livelihood for nearly two-thirds of the population in India and it currently accounts for 14.2% of the GDP and also employs 55% of country’s total workforce. The sharp fluctuations in agricultural growth are mainly attributed to the vagaries of monsoon. Rainfed agriculture is spread over 55% of net cultivated area, contributing over 40% to the national agricultural production.

Soil is generally defined as the upper layer of earth in which plants grow. It is regarded as a source of nourishment to all animals, moving or static. From agriculture or crop production point of view, soil is loose earth surface that supports vegetation, its quality, type and density. It is generally treated as a dynamic living entity and its physic-biochemical properties are responsible for its nutritional index. Precision production technology with suitable management is the key factors for its longer sustainability.

India comes in a tropical region and so it has a tropical monsoonal climate. The climate of India is governed by mountain ranges as well as direction of rain winds like south-west and north-east monsoon and alternate season is the main feature of Indian climate. Climate in South India is generally hotter and extremely humid than that of North India.