Efficient Utilization of Modern Inputs for Sustainable Agricolture

Green Revolution triggered in India with the introduction of high yielding varieties of crops particularly wheat and rice in seventies. The cultivators rapidly adopted these varieties in states like Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh in North India, which produced high yields by greatly responding to modern inputs, generation of suitable crop production and protection technologies and favourable public policies. But continuation of same cropping patterns over the last three decades with inefficient and indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals inputs as well as natural resources have resulted into mounting environmental problems. The shrinking of natural resources coupled with technology and public policy related problems have caused increase in cost of production over the years. Considering various factors like optimization of agriculture productivity and profitability, employment generation, natural resource conservation and reduction in agrochemical use, the objectives framed were i) to study utilization pattern of land, water and agro-chemicals in perspective ii) to formulate suitable farm plans for sustainable production. The investigation was carried out in Haryana being one of the states of Indian Union which experienced green revolution in the first instance of its introduction has witnessed impressive increase in food grains production from 25.92 to130.65 lakh tones during the period 1966-2000. Moreover, it improves its relative position in terms of per capita income and second in position for contributing to national food grain pool. The data with regards to land use pattern, irrigation water, cropping pattern etc. were scanned from various published sources. The gross returns for different crop enterprises were calculated by taking average productivity of a particular crop for triennium ending 2001 and post harvest prices of current year. Simple percentage, average and ratio statistical tools were applied for analysing the utilization pattern of resources. General Algebric Modeling System (GAMS) was employed to make rescheduling of resources on sustainable lines. The results of the study reveal that area under forests does not indicate any appreciable increase over the years. The cropping pattern exhibited the acreage concentration of resource exhaustive and less risky crops like cotton, wheat, sugarcane and paddy and most of irrigation water were used amongst these crops. Increased consumption of nitrogenous fertilizers and pesticides, continuation of same cropping pattern over the time period resulted into accentuating the area under problematic soils, depletion of underground water, infestation of weeds, insect-pests and diseases. The optimal sustainable production plans showed increase in gross returns as well as accrued benefits through saving the water and agro-chemicals. The optimal plans in corporation the crop enterprises like green gram, black gram, soyabean, groundnut etc not only improved the soil health but also reduction in use of natural resources and agroAgroenviron 2004 – Udine, Italy, 20-24 October 2004 416 chemicals. The optimal plans further make sure to accommodate the economic, ecological and social aspects paving the path for sustainable development in agriculture.