Re-Designing Energy-Efficient and Intensively Managed Cereal Based Cropping Systems for Reducing the Environmental Footprints of Production in North-West India: A Review

Abstract

Agriculture is a major contributor to India's environmental footprint, particularly through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Sustainable agricultural systems are needed to produce high-quality and affordable food in sufficient quantity to meet the growing population need for food, feed, and fuel, and at the same time, farming systems must have a low impact on the environment. Achieving sustainability of the cereal system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of North West India under progressive climate change and variability necessitates adoption of practices and technologies that increase food production, adaptation and mitigation the environmental footprints of production in a sustainable way. But production is becoming unsustainable due to depletion or degradation of soil and water resources, rising production costs, decreasing input use efficiency, and increasing environmental pollution. In contrast, cereal production systems in the IGP are largely traditional, with low yields and farm income. This review paper mainly focus on the reduction of environmental footprint production in cereal systems such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the adoption of emerging conservation agricultural practices i.e., re-designing energy-efficient, economically sustainable and intensively managed options for cereal systems. Adoption of re-designing energy-efficient, economically sustainable and intensively managed cereal systems could help in reducing the environmental footprints of production (EFP) while maintaining productivity and better resource utilization. In India could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by almost 18 percent through the adoption of mitigation measures. Several studies revealed that conservation agriculture (CA) practices and technologies implemented in the cereal systems of the IGP have positive impacts on crop yields, returns from crop cultivation, input use efficiency (water, nutrient and energy), adaptation to heat stress and reduction of GHGs emissions. Improved conservation technologies or packages of practices from intensive agriculture that reduce environmental impacts, such as laser-aided land leveling, reduced or zero tillage, conservation tillage operation, precise nutrient and water management, crop residues management, crop diversification improves resource use efficiency by decreasing losses of inputs to the surrounding environment. It indicates that the adoption of better soil, water, nutrient management practices, and technologies has enormous potential to reduce environmental foot print, such as GHG emissions from agriculture cereal systems, thereby contributing to the mitigation of climate change.