Improving Crop Productivity In Sustainable Agriculture

An up-to-date overview of current progress in improving crop quality and quantity using modern methods. With a particular emphasis on genetic engineering, this text focusses on crop improvement under adverse conditions, paying special attention to such staple crops as rice, maize, and pulses. It includes an excellent mix of specific examples, such as the creation of nutritionally-fortified rice and a discussion of the political and economic implications of genetically engineered food. The result is a must-have hands-on guide, ideally suited for the biotech and agro industries.

The cropping system is one of the important components of sustainable agriculture, since it provides more efficient nutrient cycling. As such, balanced fertilization must be based on the concept of sustainable crop production. Feeding the rapidly growing world population using environmentally sustainable production systems is a major challenge, especially in developing countries. A number of studies have highlighted the fact that degradation of the world's cultivated soils is largely responsible for low and plateauing yields. Soil is lost rapidly but only formed over millennia, and this represents the greatest global threat to nutrient dynamics in agriculture. This means that nutrient management is essential to provide food and nutritional security for current and future generations. Nutrient dynamics and soil sustainability imply the maintenance of the desired ecological balance, the enhancement and preservation of soil functions, and the protection of biodiversity above and below ground. Understanding the role of nutrient management as a tool for soil sustainability and nutritional security requires a holistic approach to a wide range of soil parameters (biological, physical, and chemical) to assess the soil functions and nutrient dynamics of a crop management system within the desired timescale. Further, best nutrient management approaches are important to advance soil sustainability and food and nutritional security without compromising the soil quality and productive potential. Sustainable management practices must allow environmentally and economically sustainable yields and restore soil health and sustainability. This book presents soil management approaches that can provide a wide range of benefits, including improved fertility, with a focus on the importance of nutrient dynamics. Discussing the broad impacts of nutrients cycling on the sustainability of soil and the cropping systems that it supports, it also addresses nutrient application to allow environmentally and economically sustainable agroecosystems that restore soil health. Arguing that balanced fertilization must be based on the concept of INM for a cropping system rather than a crop, it provides a roadmap to nutrient management for sustainability. This richly illustrated book features tables, figures and photographs and includes extensive up-to-date references, making it a valuable resource for policymakers and researchers, as well as undergraduate and graduate students of Soil Science, Agronomy, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

This volume is a ready reference on sustainable agriculture and reinforce the understanding for its utilization to develop environmentally sustainable and profitable food production systems. It describes ecological sustainability of farming systems, present innovations for improving efficiency in the use of resources for sustainable agriculture and propose technological options and new areas of research in this very important area of agriculture.

With contributions from leading scientists in agricultural biology and young researchers, this book examines the ecological consequences that sometimes arise with various methods of increasing crop productivity. It also presents agroecological approaches to crop improvement and productivity from several perspectives, examines alternative energy sources, and discusses other problems related to sustainable agriculture.

Feeding the increasing global population, which is projected to reach ~10 billion by 2050, there has been increasing demands for more improved/sustainable agricultural management practices that can be followed by farmers to improve productivity without jeopardizing the environment and ecosystem. Indeed, about 95% of our food directly or indirectly comes from soil. It is a precious resource, and sustainable soil management is a critical socio–economic and environmental issue. Maintaining the environmental sustainability while the world is facing resource degradation, increasing climate change and population explosion is the current challenge of every food production sectors. Thus, there is an urgent need to evolve a holistic approach such as conservation agriculture to sustain higher crop productivity in the country without deteriorating soil health. Conservation Agriculture (CA), is a sustainable approach to manage agro–ecosystems in order to improve productivity, increase farm profitabilty and food security and also enhance the resource base and environment. Worldwide, it has been reported various benefits and prospects in adopting CA technologies in different agro-climatic conditions. Yet, CA in arid and semi-arid regions of India and parts of south Asia raises uncertainities due to its extreme climates, large scale residue burning, soil erosion and other constraints such as low water holding capacity, high potential evapotranspiration, etc . Thus, the proposed book has 30 chapters addressing all issues relevant to conservation agriculture/no-till farming system. The book also gives further strengthening existing knowledge in relation to soil physical, chemical and biological processes and health within close proximity of CA as well as machinery requirements. Moreover, the information on carbon (C) sequestration, C credits, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, mitigation of climate change effects and socio-economic view on CA under diverse ecologies namely rainfed, irrigated and hill eco-region is also deliberated. For large scale adoption of CA practices in South Asian region especially in India and other countries need dissemination of best-bet CA technologies for dominant soil types/cropping systems through participatory mode, strong linkages and institutional mechanism and public-private-policy support. We hope this book gives a comprehensive and clear picture about conservation agriculture/no-till farming and its associated problem, challenges, prospects and benefits. This book shall be highly useful reference material to researchers, scientists, students, farmers and land managers for efficient and sustainable management of natural resources.

The book aim to contribute the latest understandings of physiological, biochemical and molecular bases of the responses of major crop plants to a range of different biomass produced biochar to introduce climate resilience crop varieties which leads to enhanced crop productivity and quality under stressful conditions and also for better utilization of natural resources to ensure food security through modern breeding. Finally, this book will be a valuable resource for future plant stress related research with biochar, and can be considered as a reference book for front-line researchers working on sustaining crop production under climate change. Adverse effects of climate changes on crops has developed the situation quite critical for sustainable agriculture. Food security has become in danger due to low production of agricultural crops by resilient climate and ever increasing human population. Heat, drought, salinity, soil compaction, flooding and poor soil organic carbon induced stress in crops by climate adverse conditions are major concerns in this regard. A mechanistic understanding of the interactions between abiotic stresses response of crops is needed to identify and take advantage of acclimation traits in major crop species as a prerequisite for securing robust yield and good quality. This underpins a need for crops with inherent yield increase, yield stability against multiple abiotic stresses and improved quality. Individual stress tolerance mechanisms have been well documented so far. However, mechanisms behind plants’ tolerance by application of biochar and its interactions with soil and plant roots towards multiple abiotic stresses are not fully understood. In addition, there will always be some uncertainty associated with modelling the complex relationships between agricultural yields, product quality with biochar under future climate scenarios. Prediction of yield and quality stability, one of most complex agronomic traits, must integrate aspects of plant development, physiology, biochemistry and genetics. Furthermore, the GxExM interactions will complicate the model predications, thus the responses of a given genotype to a defined environment under certain management strategy need to be determined empirically and used to parameterise and refine crop models.

Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.

Crop improvement for future farming systems. History of crop improvement in sustainable agriculture. Choosing germplasm for breeding program success. The role of seed companies in crop improvement. Crop breeding objectives and methods. Breeding for resistance to insects and plant pathogens. Crop tolerance to weeds. Tree improvement for agroforestry systems. Contributions of biotechnology to crop improvement. Genotype by environment interaction in crop improvement. Statistical design and analysis of intercropping experiments.