This document discusses soil fertility and sustainable agriculture. It defines soil fertility as the ability of soil to provide nutrients and water for plant growth. Sustainable agriculture aims to satisfy food demand while protecting the environment and conserving resources. Soil fertility is compromised by overexploiting soil, leading to degradation. Sustainable agriculture practices like crop rotation, cover crops, and organic manures can maintain soil fertility while intensifying production. The goals of sustainable agriculture include satisfying needs, enhancing environmental quality, and sustaining farms' economic viability.
2. Soil Fertility
• Soil Fertility is the ability of the soil to
provide essential plant nutrients and water
to the plants in adequate amount for proper
plant growth and reproduction
3. Sustainable
Agriculture
• Sustainable agriculture is the judicial
practices of production of food, fiber, or
other plant or animal products using
farming techniques that protect the
environment, conserve resources and
satisfy the high demand at the same time.
4. How are they linked ?
• Intensification of current production system by
increasing cropping intensity and by using mineral
fertilizers is the only way to increase the agricultural
production to supply the ever-increasing demand of
agricultural products.
• Soil Fertility is compromised due to the over
exploitation of the soil resources resulting in fertile
soil loss and soil degradation making the land infertile
over the years.
• Thus the need of the hour is -
Sustainable Agriculture Practices
5. GOALS
• Satisfy Human Food and Fibre Needs
• Enhance environment quality and available Soil
resources
• To make most efficient use of Non Renewable
Resources and
• Maintain natural biological cycles and controls
• Sustain Economic viability of farm operation
• Enhance the quality of life of farmer’s and society
as a whole.
6. BENEFITS
• Maintains the fertility of soil by reducing land
degradation and soilerosion.
• It does not advocate the use of chemical or
commercial fertilizers
• Conserves Biodiversity
• Conserves the natural resources
• Reduce water consumption in farming hence
prevents water loss
7. METHODS
• FullUtilisation ofresources-
Nutrients recycling and planting more plants who fix
their own nitrogen
• Practicing crop rotation.
• Growing cover crops.
• Reduce reliance on external inputs- More
application of organic manures and less of chemical
fertilizer.
• Soil enrichment.
• Maintaining Natural Pest Predators.
• Integrated pestmanagement.
8. Nitrogen Fixing Plants
• The relationship between legumes and the
bacteria Bradyrhizobium fixes atmospheric
Nitrogen into the soil.
• Examples : Peas, Beans, Clover, Peanut
9. CROP ROTATION
• Croprotation is the practice of growing aseries of
dissimilar or different types of crops in thesamearea
in sequenced seasonstomaintain the fertility of soil.
10. COVER CROPS
• A cover crop is atype of plant grown primarilyto
suppressweeds, manage soil erosion and improve soil
fertility andquality.
Example:Sorghum, clover, etc.
11. SOIL ENRICHMENT
• It is aprocessof adding nutrients in thesoil to
increase its quality andproductivity.
Ex.Compost and lime.
12. NATURAL PEST PREDATORS
• It is amethod ofcontrolling pests like- insects
and weed, using other organisms(predators)
which are their enemies.
13. INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT
• IPM is an ecosystem-basedstrategy that
focuses on long-term prevention of pestsor
their damage through acombination of
techniques such asbiological control and
modification of culturaltechniques.
15. NATIONAL MISSION FOR
SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE
NMSA
• NMSA derives its mandate from Sustainable
Agriculture Mission which is one of the eight
Missions outlined under National Action Plan
on Climate Change(NAPCC).
• Thefocus of NMSAwill be to infuse the
judicious utilization of resources ofcommons
through community basedapproach.
16. OBJECTIVES OF NMSA
• To conserve natural resources through appropriate
soil and moisture conservation measures.
• To make agriculture more productive, sustainable,
remunerative and climate resilient by promoting
location specific Integrated/Composite Farming
Systems.
• To optimize utilization of water resources through
efficient water management to expand coveragefor
achieving ‘more crop per drop.
