| | November 20199R&D to improve yields, manage soil fertility and guide farmers in proper crop pest management.Soil and Nutrient Management:The organic carbon content of the soil is an important factor for the fertility of soil. Organic Carbon is improved in the soil by the application of cattle manure, green leaf manure, organic fertilizers, bio-fertilizers, crop resi-dues and crop rotation with legumi-nous crops. These practices should be revived along with the conventional methods of application of balanced fertilizers and soil amendments.Application of Nitrogen, Phospho-rous and Potash fertilizers has to be in a balanced 4:2:1 ratio for getting good crop and good yield. In practice, farm-ers use excessive quantity of Urea (Ni-trogen) and it leads to a skewed NPK ratio of 8:3:1 as noticed now. This practice leads to lower productivity of crop, high pest incidence and high pollution of water bodies with Nitrates and production of greenhouse gases like Nitrous oxide. Integrated Nutri-tion Management should be practiced for better crop yield.Seeds Selection of seeds is an important function to get good yields. High yielding, disease and pest resistant varieties wherever available, should be used. While fresh hybrids have to be bought every year, in the case of local varieties and high yielding va-rieties, the seeds have to be replaced with new certified seeds at least once in 3 years to keep up the genetic pu-rity. It is called Seed Replacement Rate (SRR). In order to prevent inci-dence of certain diseases, the Depart-ment of Agriculture advocates treat-ing of seeds with some organic and non-organic fungicides.Crop protection:In order to save the crops from pests and diseases, integrated pest man-agement practices as advised by the Department of Agriculture and other agencies are to be followed. Excessive use of pesticides leaves toxic residues in the produce causing health hazards and pollution to the environment.Mechanization:Traditionally humans and draft ani-mals met the farm power need. Draft-ability study of draft animals revealed that bullocks and the buffaloes pull about 10 percent of their body weight, camels about 18 percent of the body weight and donkeys about 34 percent. For the current level of intensive farm-ing and required levels of productivi-ty, animal power will not be adequate. The human power availability also is decreasing steadily. As a result, elec-tro-mechanical sources supplement and substitute animate sources. For stationery operations like operation of irrigation pump, power thresher, a chaff cutter and grinder, engines and motors are in use. Whereas for tractive field operations like field preparations, planting, weeding and harvesting, there are tractors and power tillers run by diesel engines mounted on them. The average farm power availabili-ty in India has increased from 0.30 kW/ha in 1960-61 to about 1.8kW/ha in 2011-12. The ideal farm power need during 2020 would be around 2.0kw/ha.Irrigation:India uses 2 to 4 times more water to produce a unit of a major food crop than China and Brazil. According to NASA, Indian water tables are depleting at a rate of 0.3 meters per year. An efficient drip/micro irrigation system reduces consumption of fertilizers, loss of water through evaporation and increases yield. Efforts are needed to improve ground water levels through rain water harvesting, discouraging of deforestation and increasing area under micro irrigation. Conclusion:The above are some suggestions to improve agricultural productivity to meet the demands of the growing population. The population of India will continue to rise till 2050 lead-ing to reduced per capita availabil-ity of food grains. This challenge is to be addressed with proper food production technologies. Alternate employment opportunities should be created in rural areas without causing migration to citiesDorairaj. K, Director
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