Improved Irrigation Practices for Higher Agricultural Productivity: A Review

Abstract

Technological innovations will leads to meet the present and future challenges of agriculture sector. Water is one of important natural resource, since time immemorial, also acted as catalyst during Green Revolution and helped India achieve self-sufficient status in food grain production. Fresh water is only 2.6% of the total water resources of the world has to be utilized efficiently. Inspite of coverage under irrigation in India and phenomenal growth in production from irrigated area, water use efficiency remains very low as irrigation water is lost during conveyance and application. Prevalent irrigation methods used in agriculture are primarily based on gravity based flow. Surface Irrigation methods viz., Land configuration, Laser levelling and Cablegation can increase production and can save 33% of water. Likewise sprinkler and drip Irrigation practices can also increase both productivity and water saving by 70-90%. The modern methods of irrigation (sprinkler, drip and micro-sprinkler) are becoming increasingly popular with application efficiencies as high as 90 to 95% when compared to 50 to 60% in conventional irrigation methods. Whereas irrigation practices like Pre-irrigation, hydrogel led to significant increase the yield levels by 36% and water saving by 27%. At present, the area under micro-irrigation is only very less when compared to large rain fed area in India. So in order to increase the higher agricultural productivity, we have to shift towards the latest innovative methods as compared to traditional methods of irrigation.

Progress toward SDG‐2: Assessing food security in 93 countries with a multidimensional indicator system

“…As the results show the countries with low food availability are mainly owing to the bad performances of indicators related to energy, protein, and meat supply, improving the high‐calories food production and meat supply is crucial for enhancing the food availability. Technological innovations can help to solve the present and future challenges of agriculture sector (Attri et al, 2022). For improving the grain production, countries with current low food availability can learn agricultural experience from countries with high food security, and introduce advanced cropping technologies, such as drip irrigation, greenhouse planting, and drought‐tolerant varieties.…”

“…For example, Israel, under the plight of water shortage and desertification, has high food availability mainly owing to the developed agricultural technology and management on agriculture, whose drip irrigation can drive water efficiency rate in agriculture reach 70% to 80% while only 40% in open irrigation (Megersa & Abdulahi, 2015). Modern irrigation methods, such as sprinkler and drip irrigation, can improve the crop production and water saving by 70%‐90%, pre‐irrigation and hydrogel can elevate the production levels by 36% and water saving by 27% (Attri et al, 2022). For improving protein supply, it is suggested for those low‐availability countries to develop mechanized chicken farms to largely extend the scale of dietary protein supply.…”

“…As the results show the countries with low food availability are mainly owing to the bad performances of indicators related to energy, protein, and meat supply, improving the high-calories food production and meat supply is crucial for enhancing the food availability. Technological innovations can help to solve the present and future challenges of agriculture sector (Attri et al, 2022). For improving the grain pro- (Megersa & Abdulahi, 2015).…”

“…For improving the grain pro- (Megersa & Abdulahi, 2015). Modern irrigation methods, such as sprinkler and drip irrigation, can improve the crop production and water saving by 70%-90%, pre-irrigation and hydrogel can elevate the production levels by 36% and water saving by 27% (Attri et al, 2022).…”

Improving growth, and productivity of faba bean cultivars grown under drought stress conditions by using arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in sandy soil

“…Inoculation of plants with AMF resulting increased crop yields by 23.0% owing to the increase in plant growth and nutrient uptake, photosynthesis, and drought stress resistance (Wu et al, 2022), improved soil structure (Youssef et al, 2017), and promoted crop quality and productivity (Begum et al, 2019). Egypt is placed in an arid and semi-arid area, water scarcity and its use efficiency are considered essential factors that directly affect the productivity of many crops globally (Orabi et al, 2021), and crops need water for all physiological processes i.e., photosynthesis, nutrient uptake, and other metabolic processes, and about 400-500 liter of water is necessary for the production of 1 Kilo from plant dry matter (Attri et al, 2022). Arable land in Egypt is considered one of the world's most intensive agricultural systems, which is estimated at 3% of the total area of Egypt and the rest is desert (Salama et al, 2017).…”