DRYLAND FARMING IN INDIA ROLL NO

NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TERM PAPER Review of THE FORSAKEN DRYLANDS: SEMINAR, AUGUST 2006 & RELATED TEXT XAVIER INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, BHUBANESWAR SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY: Prof Shambu Prasad Achin Bansal (05) Amit Kumar (07) INDEX Executive Summary Introduction to drylands and their complexities Understanding the problems of Drylands Approaching the problem to provide “SUSTAINABLE” solutions Providing sustainable livelihood to dryland farmers Policy Initiatives 14 Points of Analysis and Learning 17 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The paper takes a comprehensive look at drylands, the problems afflicting them, the challenges that the population residing in these areas face, the cyclical problem of poverty and deprivitation that the resident population has to face and the ways in which they are coping with it Further the paper tales a look at attaining sustainability in regard to livelihood in the contours of these constrained resources The paper lays out some guidelines to achieve the goal of attaining critical mass regarding successful livelihood promotion in these areas The paper also focuses on the lack of attention that the residents of these areas have got in both the public and policy domain It lays down certain guidelines to correct the inherent bias that the populations of drylands have had to face since decades The paper thus takes an all encompassing view of the current situation, emerging perspectives and ways to attain success in tapping the limited resources that drylands possess INTRODUCTION TO DRYLANDS AND THEIR COMPLEXITIES Dryland agriculture is a commonly used term although there is not a common definition To many, dryland agriculture and rainfed agriculture are synonymous while others draw clear distinctions between them Dryland agriculture in this presentation is considered with all phases of land use under semiarid conditions except where irrigation is practiced Therefore, livestock systems, crop-livestock systems, and crop systems are all important components of dryland agriculture There are also different systems for defining semiarid areas but the aridity index where a semiarid area is one where the ratio of annual precipitation to annual potential evapotranspiration is > 0.20 but < 0.50 is used here Dryland cropping is the growing of cultivated crops in dryland areas relying entirely on precipitation However, harvesting water from part of the land and concentrating it on another part of the land is still considered dryland cropping The first and most important decision for producers in dryland regions is to decide whether or not land should be used for growing crops Clearly, many lands in semiarid regions have been utilized for cropping that resulted in serious land degradation Although these lands were usually not highly productive in their native state, they were sustainable with proper management In many cases, cropping of these lands could not be sustained because of insufficient and highly variable precipitation that resulted in a rapid decline of soil organic matter and increasing wind and water erosion In some cases, when cropping was terminated and these lands were returned to grazing lands, they were less productive than prior to cultivation Water management is the most important factor for dryland cropping Every growing season is vastly different from the previous one in terms of growing season precipitation and temperatures, but severe water stress is common in all years Yields are highly variable and water supply usually limits yields to