Abstract
Monsoon rains provide relief from the sweltering summer heat conditions, replenish depleted profile moisture to breathe new life in soils. With appropriate management of rain water, Indian summer monsoons boost the level of ‘reservoir of life’. Our inability to manage spatial and temporal rainfall variation features of deficit and excess rainfall episodes and their interactions with soil variability is a major cause of uncertainty in agricultural production. In the past, entire focus of national efforts was on rainwater harvesting, storage and distribution through canal networks and greater reliance on ground water pumping to meet immediate crop water demands. These approaches have resulted in wide spread problems of natural resource fatigue and unsustainable water supplies. This paper analyses the complexities of climate change-land degradation-food security nexus and suggests the need for adopting alternate approaches emphasising on in situ conservation of rain water and its efficient use such as to reverse the processes that contribute to land degradation in specific landscapes.
Highlights
Agriculture is practiced in India over a wide range of soil and agroclimatic conditions, and it has provided the basis for co-evolution of different crop production and land use systems to meet food, fibre and other associated needs of the people
Hot summers followed by summer monsoon rains result in loss of organic carbon and fertile surface soil with runoff rainwater
Making Kharif crop sowing time independent of the onset of monsoon rains is important for the Indian sub-continent and to reduce crop losses due to land fallowing, late planting, soil moisture and terminal heat stresses beside providing a surface cover against monsoon rain-enhanced soil erosion to prevent loss of fertile surface soil
Summary
Agriculture is practiced in India over a wide range of soil and agroclimatic conditions, and it has provided the basis for co-evolution of different crop production and land use systems to meet food, fibre and other associated needs of the people. Ensuring food security while sustaining the quality of natural resource base was the guiding principle which determined the evolution and adoption of management practices appropriate to mineralogically distinct soils formed in different agro-ecologies. Provision of a reliable irrigation source changed the production environment, enabled widespread adoption of high yielding cultivars, enhanced the use of agri-inputs besides converting 22 million hectares (Mha) of forest, pasture and fallow lands to arable lands. While these measures, undoubtedly, contributed to addressing the urgency of increasing food production within a short span, there were unintended consequences as well which pose additional challenges. Some estimates suggest that production of a large biomass is annually depleting Indian soils of 10-12 million tons of essential nutrients, adversely affecting soil health [5]
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