Food Resources Sustainable Agriculture

Introduction

     Food is one of the basic needs of man. Early man lived on roots and berries of wild plants but with civilization, man learnt to cultivate plants to satisfy his food needs. With continuous increase in population and rapid urbanization, our natural resources have been over exploited. As a result of this, our natural resources are getting depleted at a very fast rate.

Sustainable Agriculture

     Sustainability means keeping an effort going continuously, or the ability to last out and keep from falling. So sustainable agriculture means successful management of resources for agriculture to satisfy the changing human needs, while maintaining or enhancing the quality of environment and conserving natural resources.

Mixed Farming

     While modern day farmers specialize in one agricultural sector, either dairy or growing potatoes, their predecessors kept a wide array of farm animals and planted many different kinds of field crops. Their farms were remarkably self sufficient, producing eggs, meat, milk, vegetables and grains for the family and all the fodder and hay for the farm animals.

Mixed Cropping

     Mixed cropping is growing of two or more crops simultaneously on the same piece of land. It is also known as multiple cropping. This type of cropping leads to an improvement in the fertility of the soil and hence, increase in crop yield because when the two crops are properly chosen the products and refuse from one crop plant help in the growth of the other crop plant and vice-versa.

Crop Rotation

     The growing of different kinds of crops on a piece of land in a preplanned succession is known as crop rotation. In the rotation of crops, leguminous crops like pulses, beans, peas, groundnut and Bengal gram are sown in-between the seasons of cereal crops like wheat, maize and pearl millet. The leguminous plants are grown alternately with non-leguminous plants to restore the fertility of the soil. When the cereal crops like rice, wheat, maize are grown in the soil, it uses up a lot of nitrogenous salts from the soil. If another crop of cereal is grown in the same soil, the soil becomes nitrogen deficient.

Varietal Improvement

     There are several varieties of rice available in the market. Similarly, there are many varieties of mangoes and brinjal. Each variety is unique in its colour, size, shape and taste. Thus, one type of plant has many varieties. A lot of research has gone into creating these varieties. They have been tailor made to satisfy the different needs of man.

Plant Breeding

     Crop production can be improved by breeding new varieties of crops having higher yield. The main aim of plant breeding is to produce new crops superior to the existing ones. By this method new varieties of crops, having higher yield, resistant to pests and disease can be grown.