Sustainable Agriculture: Need of the Hour
Kavita Rambal
Department of Botany, Maharishi Dayanand College of Arts, Science & Commerce. Parel, Mumbai-400012 (India) E-mail: kavita.rambal@rediffmail.com
ABSTRACT
Since time immemorial agriculture has played a vital role and is the key factor for running the economy of our country. Due to the efforts of researchers, we have been able to overcome the difficulties of famine and have become self-sufficient as far as food production is concerned. Various milestones like green revolution, White revolution, Blue and Golden revolutions have completely revolutionized our agriculture. Efforts are still on in this direction as India is a populous country and the population is on the rise day by day. We have not only become selfsufficient, but we have been exporting many agricultural and horticultural products, as such have experienced a gain in foreign exchange. The bumper cash crop production has been achieved by the virtue of conventional rather industrialized farming techniques. The soils have been supplemented with chemical nutrients, fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides etc. The health of the soil has been affected a lot first monoculture and later pollution. Soil health is very essential for the health of the crop and the people who consume it. Some places in Kolhapur in Maharashtra have experienced a devastating effect in the form of arsenic pollution. It is not restricted but is getting magnified and reaching toxic levels. Soils in Punjab are also put to lot of stress because of monoculture. Still one can think of remedy and the remedy is none other than sustainable agriculture. Which really is the need of the hour. In the present study various measures which can be taken in order to restore the fertility rather healthy soil health for agriculture will be discussed.