Rainfed Agriculture extends over 87.5 m.ha of net sown area in different agro-climatic zones of our country and contributes over 40 percent to our food basket. Rainfed agriculture in turn supports 40 percent of human and 60 percent of livestock populations.
More fruit yield in trees was noticed To meet the growing demand for food, the scope for further addition to area under agriculture and horticulture are possible only through the exploitation of drylands under wasteland environment. Wastelands are degraded and undulated lands. And they have low water holding capacity. Rainfall in wasteland is generally low and highly erratic and largely vulnerable to runoff and seepage losses. Rainwater harvesting
Rural poverty in Tamil Nadu is concentrated among those with marginal landholdings and dependent on rainfed agriculture. Dry land areas contribute about one half of India's production of coarse grain, cereals, pulses, oilseeds and cotton.
During January 2008, the author visited Alawa village (population nearly 1000) in Jhalawar District, Rajasthan to study scarcity of irrigation water. Armed with diesel engines, farmers were seen aggressively pumping water from two check dams located in the Ahu River
Studies on development and promotion of IPM technology in rainfed, Bt and non-Bt cotton varieties were carried out for four consecutive years (2001-2004) at the two locations at Nawandi and Loha, Nanded in 6th agro-ecological region of India. Sucking pests were 31.4% and 12.2% more in non-IPM than the IPM fields of Bt and non-Bt cotton, respectively.
Green revolution in India has bypassed the remote places like hills. Farmers who are struggling for survival under unfavorable conditions like hills need focus. In Uttarakhand, only 13.62 per cent is the net cultivated area. Agriculture in Uttarakhand is primarily confined to lower and mid hill regions and is basically subsistence in nature.
Most climate change models predict that this global phenomenon will have severe impacts on small farmers, particularly in developing countries. Increasing temperatures, droughts, heavy precipitation and other extreme climatic events could reduce yields by up to 50 percent in some regions, especially in drylands.
The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach has become wellknown after the positive experiences seen in Indonesia and other Asian countries. In this article we describe how the "conventional' IPM Farmer Field School approach has been modified in the South Indian dryland agriculture context, in order to suit the needs and problems of farmers in this area. Dec 2007
For drylands with low inherent levels of biological productivity, coping with climate change presents particular problems. The world’s drylands cover over 40 % of the global terrestrial area and house more than 2 billion inhabitants MEA, (2005). The world’s poorest people live in these areas and they will be hit hardest by the adverse effects of climate change. The effects will manifest themselves not through increased temperatures per se but rather via changes in hydrological cycles characterised by both increased droughts and paradoxically, increased risks of flooding.
