SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE PRACTICE: A REVIEW OF EMERGING POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN INDIA

Sustainable agriculture is argued to significantly contribute to national growth by ensuring long-term food security, promoting economic stability, and preserving environmental health by adopting practices such as crop diversification, bio-intensive integrated pest management, agroforestry, organic farming, precision agriculture, crop rotation, cover crops, rotational grazing and inclusion of locally adapted breeds & resistant variety, lower tillage, and chemical inputs. The transition from traditional to sustainable agriculture requires a systematic approach involving work at both micro and macro level. Most of the government policies related to agriculture are made at agroecosystem level (macro level) and fail to cover the individual farm level (micro level). Studying the farm in relation to the agroclimatic zone in which it is located can help increase productivity with limited resources. In India, nearly half of the labour force is engaged in agriculture and allied sectors and a large section of them are small and marginal farmers having resource constraint. It is pertinent to explore sustainability of the farm practices of these farmers and its impact on social economic and environment aspects. This paper discusses the different sustainable farming practices that have been practiced since ages. The paper also throws light on the importance of developing the right integration of select best practices for optimal results. An effort has also been made to discuss the importance of agriculture sustainability index using soci-economic and ecological dimensions, for deciding the sustainability mix suited to different farms.