Illustrate the current scenario of Indian agriculture by providing statistical data on crop production, land utilization, and technological adoption, and visualize the regional disparities and challenges faced by farmers.
Soil problems in India include12:
- Deforestation, which leaves the soil devoid of binding material.
- Overgrazing, which loosens the soil structure.
- Faulty agricultural methods such as ploughing, lack of crop rotation, and practice of shifting cultivation.
- Deficiency in fertility. Indian soils are generally deficient in nitrogen and phosphorous, while high in potassium.
- Soil erosion and land degradation. In India, 53% of land is estimated to be affected by soil erosion and land degradation and 83% is affected by water and wind erosion. Unless there is something done to fix the environmental effects of current farming practices, it is estimated that within 20 years, one third of arable land will be lost2.
Learn more:
1
Problems of Soil - INSIGHTSIAS
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insightsonindia.com
2
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Soil Degradation and Crippling Deb…
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hir.harvard.edu
This information would suggest soil erosion causing degradation of the soil capacity is fundamental to agricultural productivity issues.
I believe from the Universal Soil Loss equaliton the loss of 2 to 3 tons of soil per ha would be sufficient to have sustainability in the soil quality and capacity. I believe in India the loss is 2 to 4 times that amount. The result is a a degenerated soil condition. In this erosion the fine clay and organic materials are lost primarily leaving coarse materials which are not as fertile.
About one third of Indian sources would have a tendency to be acid and the use ammoniated fertilizers would be particularly harmful for that condition
Indian soils are largely deficit in mcro nutrients Nitrogen and Phosphorus and the use of biological nitrification is a way of reducing many of the Nitrogen issues.
The baselining of soils for soil organic matter can be used to improve the water holding and aeration of soils the use of anti erosion soil conservation, diverse crop rotations return of organic materials to soil and use of plant animal rotations are critical for the ability to regenerative soil organic matter which has suffered 50 to 90% loss of the predominating agricultural management.
The Indian continent will need to baseline manage and monitor for soil and soil organic matter to reverse the prevalent soil degradation which is found in 83% of the soils surveyed.
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