1. Minimize, or even eliminate soil tillage. 2. Develop and apply agronomic techniques that improve the carbon content in the soil and stabilize its organic matter. 3. Increase abundance and diversity of soil biota. 4. Move agriculture towards increasing the cultivation of perennial crops instead of annuals. 5. Employ agroforestry principles and practices in farming systems. 6. Think of soil as a gigantic digestor where crop residues become a valuable resource to produce and also retain carbon.
Good question. The Carbon Footprint caused by Agriculture is relatively smaller, and therefore not a Global problem. One move in the Indian Context the will be very useful is taking-up afforestation in degraded lands.
Unfortunately, the carbon footprint caused by Agriculture is quite large in the farming systems of industrialized countries. The U.S. for example consumes about 40% of its energy derived from oil and other non-renewable fossil fuels to grow livestock and crops. In my previous answer to this question I have listed six approaches that if applied on a larger scale could contribute to lower agriculture's footprint. In other words, it is imperative to wean conventional agriculture from its addiction to oil from which also agrichemical products derive. This shift should aim at developing farming systems that lean more towards ecology, while targeting local markets, rather than continuing to support an economy that is aiming at fostering further expansions of the global market.
Agriculture must shift from being an extractive human activity to regenerative. A vast body of literature at present is suggesting that agroecology is the vehicle to operate this change of paradigm in food production.