scholarly journals Strategies and Programs for Improved Nutrient Use Efficiency, Doubling Farmer’s Income, and Sustainable Agriculture: Indian Context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravinder Juttu ◽  
Kamalakar Jogula ◽  
Subhashree Priyadarshini ◽  
Sharan Bhoopal Reddy ◽  
Prasanta Kumar Patra ◽  
...  

Since the Green Revolution era, the farming sector exploited the soils for food, fiber, fodder, etc., with high input responsive varieties that excavated vast amounts of chemical fertilizers. The burgeoning population of the country calls for a commensurate increase in food production to satisfy the demands of its inhabitants. Further, due to innovative mechanization in agriculture, specialization, and government policy programs, the productivity of food has soared. Subsequently, it ensued greater productions and minimized food prizes. Regrettably, intensive agricultural operations degraded the soil quality and now reached such a stage where without external inputs, growers unable to achieve their targeted yields. India has lost 68% innate productive capacity of agricultural soils. This plunder of land’s quality continues unabated, further resulting in low nutrient use efficiency and insufficient yields of agroecosystems. Therefore, this is high time to realize the dreadful impacts of intensive crop production on the natural ecosystem. Irrefutably, both soil and its nutrients are the wondrous gifts of nature to humankind; utilizing them sustainably is imperative. The present chapter highlights the impacts of non-judicious nutrient management on soil productivity, nutrient use efficiency, and novel technologies required to promote sustainable agriculture and achieve the target of doubling farmer’s income in India.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (No 1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barkha . ◽  
Ananya Chakraborty

Nutrient use efficiency (NUE) is an important concept in the evaluation of crop production systems. With emerging nutrient deficiencies under intensive agriculture, there is a need to improve NUE. One of the approaches to enhance it is by judicious use of fertilizers (adequate rate, effective source, methods and time of application) as well as inclusion of organic manures. Organic nutrient sources are very effective but as their availability is not sufficient to meet the nutrient demand, we have to integrate both organic and inorganic sources of nutrients together in order to achieve higher NUE. Common measures of NUE include Partial Factor Productivity (PFP), Agronomic Efficiency (AE), Apparent Recovery Efficiency (RE), Physiological Efficiency (PE) and Internal Utilization Efficiency (IE). Mineral Fertilizer Equivalent (MFE) is another parameter that can be used to assess short term release of nutrients (mainly nitrogen) from organic nutrient sources


2018 ◽  
Vol 102 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Author(s):  
Fernando García ◽  
Andrés Grasso ◽  
María González Sanjuan ◽  
Adrián Correndo ◽  
Fernando Salvagiotti

Trends over the past 25 years indicate that Argentina’s growth in its grain crop productivity has largely been supported by the depletion of the extensive fertility of its Pampean soils. Long-term research provides insight into sustainable nutrient management strategies ready for wide-scale adoption.


2021 ◽  
Vol 192 ◽  
pp. 103181
Author(s):  
Jagadish Timsina ◽  
Sudarshan Dutta ◽  
Krishna Prasad Devkota ◽  
Somsubhra Chakraborty ◽  
Ram Krishna Neupane ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
João M. Carvalho ◽  
Silvio J. Ramos ◽  
Antonio E. Furtini Neto ◽  
Markus Gastauer ◽  
Cecilio F. Caldeira ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-129
Author(s):  
Gordon Conway ◽  
Ousmane Badiane ◽  
Katrin Glatzel

This chapter proposes that the way forward will be a prosperous and sustainable agriculture sector deeply rooted in the concept of sustainable intensification (SI): producing more with less, using inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides more prudently, adapting to climate change, reducing GHG emissions, improving natural capital such as soil moisture capacity and the diversity of pests' enemies, and building resilience. One approach to SI is to employ precision agriculture, ensuring that inputs—whether nutrients, pesticides, seeds, or water—are used in a precise, sparing, effective, and strategic way in order to minimize their environmental impact. Thus microdosing permits the prudent, targeted use of inputs such as fertilizers, thereby improving soil quality and moisture while reducing the environmental impact that excessive use can cause. It also reduces costs and helps improve nutrient use efficiency and protection against drought. Precision farming focuses on just one aspect of SI. More generally, it is a concept that includes three mutually reinforcing pillars: ecological intensification, genetic intensification, and socioeconomic intensification.


2015 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 562-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijay Singh Meena ◽  
Sunita Kumari Meena ◽  
Jay Prakash Verma ◽  
Ram Swaroop Meena ◽  
B.N. Ghosh

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-255
Author(s):  
YOGENDRA KUMAR ◽  

Enhancing nutrient use efficiency (NUE) with minimal threat to environment has become critical for our agriculture food production systems (FPS) to sustain the burgeoning population. Nanotechnology with nanoscale inputs for production of nano agri-inputs (NAIPs) has emerged as an innovative solution for addressing issue of low or declining nutrient use efficiency (NUE) with minimal environment footprint. Nanotechnology is a promising field of research which has the potential to offer sustainable solutions to ever pressing challenges confronting our modern intensive agriculture. Nanotechnology employs nanomaterials which typically have small size (1–100 nm) which imparts unique characteristics and benefits. In addition to numerous other benefits, large surface area to volume ratio offers opportunity for better and effective interaction of nanoparticles to target sites. Nano-fertilizers hold potential to fulfil plant nutrition requirements along with imparting sustainability to crop production systems and that too without compromising the crops yield. Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) - the farmers’ own fertilizer cooperative has been in the forefront for promotion of agro-technologies and novel agri-inputs to mitigate problems faced by the farmers. It has indigenously innovated at its Nano Biotechnology Research Centre (NBRC) at Kalol, Gujarat and succeeded in R& D and manufacturing of proprietary nano-fertilizers viz. nano urea, nano zinc, and nano copper. These nano-fertilizers utilize the dynamics of shape, size, surface area and bio-assimilation. There efficacy was evaluated on the basis of multi-location multi-crop trials under varying crop seasons, both by the research institutes and also on the progressive farmers’ fields across 11,000 locations on 94 crops across India. Independently, nano nitrogen, nano zinc, and nano copper have also been tested for bio-efficacy- bio safety- toxicity and environment suitability. IFFCO nano-fertilizers meet alll the current national and international guidelines related to nano technology or nano scale agri-inputs.They are in sync with OECD testing guidelines (TGs) and “Guidelines for Testing of NAIPs and Food Products” released by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. Harvested produce of crops applied with IFFCO nano-Urea, nano-zinc, and nano-copper have been found fit for consumption with no adverse effect. This paper reviews the benefits of nanofertilizers (Nano N, Nano Zn and Nano Cu) towards increasing nutrient use efficiency and crop productivity and produce quality in general and the journey of IFFCO nano-fertilizers (IFFCO’s Nano Urea, Nano Zn and Nano Cu) from conception to PILOT to PLANT stage has also been covered in this paper.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document