Raised and sunken bed system for crop diversification, improving water productivity and economic returns: A case study in low-lying paddy lands of North-east India

Abstract

The raised and sunken bed (RSB) land configuration was tested and evaluated during 2017–2020 for promoting crop diversification and intensification, enhancing water and crop productivity, and testing the economic variability of the farmers of North-east India. Being situated in sub-tropics, the study area received an average annual rainfall of 1905 mm. Water accumulated in the sunken beds was used for irrigating crops in the raised beds. The results indicated considerable improvement in cropping intensity, productivity, employment, and income under RSB system in comparison to farmers’ practice (FP) of rice monocropping system. Various cropping sequences such as broccoli-blackgram, cabbage-blackgram, cauliflower-blackgram, tomato-cowpea (fodder), chilli-greengram, potato-blackgram, pea-greengram etc. in raised beds and rice-rice sequence in sunken beds were possible under RSB land configuration to diversify the rice monocropping system. The rice equivalent yield (REY) of the cropping sequences under RSB ranged between 8.9 and 43.5 t ha−1 over only 2.7 t ha−1 under FP. The employment generation and crop production were enhanced by over 10 times (942%) and 4 times (336%), respectively under RSB over the FP. Similarly, water productivity and production efficiency were enhanced by 2.0–31.0 and 1.5–13.8 times, respectively through various cropping sequences compared to rice monocropping (FP). The various cropping sequences under RSB land configuration enhanced the B:C ratio by 75.5–513.2% over the FP producing a net income ranging from USD 657.7 to USD 5890.1 ha−1 against only USD 26.1 ha−1 under FP.