What are the major reasons for declining rice and wheat yield in the cropping system? How crop diversification is helpful to stabilize the yield of the crop in the system?. (UPSC CSE Mains 2017 - General Studies Paper 3)
Agricultural pattern in India has undergone a lot of modification over the years owing to changing consumption pattern as well as climatic changes. Average yields for wheat and rice have been declining in North-west India particularly, due to unsustainable agricultural practices adopted by farmers in India.
Major reasons for declining yield of rice and wheat
- Declining soil productivity
The soil must hold certain amount of moisture, organic matter and minerals for supporting demanding crops such as rice and wheat. Due to increasing salinity and over burden, the productivity of the land has significantly reduced.
- Climatic changes
Climate change had a great impact on growth of sensitive crops such as rice and wheat. The rice crops suffered due to lack of rains and water. Wheat, which requires mild winters for optimum growth was impacted due to increasing heat.
- Unhealthy and unscientific practices
Certain agricultural practices often lead to declining output from crops. These include excessive irrigation, over use of fertilizers and mismanagement of crop cycle.
How can crop diversification stabilise?
- Nutrient cycling
Every crop has different demand for nutrients that are taken during different time of growth. Growing rice crop continuously will not give the land time to regenerate the nutrients for the next crop. Alternate crops will provide this stop gap for nutrients production.
- Reduce stress on land resources
Dry crops like cereals are very helpful when it comes to land restoration. They grow without much efforts and also do not consume much resources. In addition they play a major part in nitrogen fixation process.
- Protection against epidemics
Productivity can also be reduced due to epidemics. By growing different variety of crops on a same land in different parts, we stop the spread of the epidemic and also the loss can be reduced significantly.
So, agricultural practices in India require major changes so that it becomes economically viable. Alternative practices like Zero Budget Natural Farming have a major role to play if we want to make agriculture a major employment generator.
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