English

Abstract

Rice-wheat cropping system is the predominant and most profitable cropping system and emerge as the major cropping system in the Indo-gangetic plains leading to the Green Revolution; Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh (UP) crescent has been the heartland of the Green Revolution (GR).It occupies an area about 65 mha in these states, out of this rice is grown on 40 mha and wheat on 25 mha and this system contribute more than 70 % of total cereal production in India. In Asia,the rice-wheat system is grown on an estimated at 23.5 million ha, including China with about 10 million ha,and South Asia with about 13.5 million ha. The area of rice-wheat system in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal is 10.0, 2.2, 0.8, and 0.5 million ha, respectively. Rice-wheat systems represent 32 per cent of the total rice area and 42 per cent of the wheat area in these countries. Several problems associated to this system in the Indo-gangetic plains, however, the major problems are reduction in organic matter of soil, depletion of water resources, lowering water quality and groundwater pollution, burning of residue, reduction in productivity, higher cost of production and environmental pollution. Due to these reasons the sustainability of rice-wheat system under great threat. Conservation agriculture offer a new paradigm for agricultural research and development different from earlier one, which mainly aimed at achieving specific food grains production targets. A shift in paradigm has become a necessity in view of widespread problems of resource degradation, which accompanied past strategies to enhance production with little concern for resource integrity. Integrating concerns of productivity, resource conservation, food quality and environment is now fundamental to sustained productivity growth. Conservation Agriculture (CA) offers an opportunity for arresting and reversing downward spiral of resource degradation, decreasing cultivation costs and making agriculture more resource-use-efficient, competitive and sustainable. ‘Conserving resources-enhancing productivity’ (CREP) has to be new mission.