Conservation agriculture for combating climate change and sustainable agriculture: A review

Abstract

Conservation agriculture (CA) is a practice in which soil is kept nearly undisturbed by adopting the techniques like zero tillage or minimum tillage, soil mulch, crop rotation, in-situ crop residue management etc. CA is in practice from the last two decades in India, though there are some constraints in its adoption. In Indo-Gangetic plains, wheat-rice based cropping system is very common and generally more tillage operations are applied to the soil. But, now the concept of CA is gaining popularity and no-till or minimum tillage practices are being adopted at a significant level. The main aim of CA is to decrease the input and increase the output in terms of crop yield as well as reduction in the production cost. CA technology is also environmental friendly as it promotes the efficient and precise use of resources in a sustainable manner. There are various constraints which limit the adoption of CA technology in India like poor availability of modern implements, continuously decreasing land holding size, unavailability of finance and lack of awareness in small and marginal farmers etc. So, from the sustainability point of view, there is an urgent need to make strategies to promote CA through the development of new policies beneficial for the farmers. This article reviews the various aspects of conservation agriculture in the Indian context.