Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

Natural resources management is the key to raise small farm productivity. Sustainability, productivity, income, equity, and livelihood concerns of rural households depend largely on our ability to understand the ground realities, promote land and water conservation measures along with efforts for inten-sification and diversification of agricultural systems with active participation of farmers. Eastern India, for example, had the highest crop productivity in the country during 1950-51. But, over the years, the situation has worsened, with poor crop yields, low cropping intensity and nutrient use per unit of cropped land and declining farm profits. This has resulted in great distress among farmers. Small & fragmented land holdings, rainfed crop-ping, regular occurrence of natural calamities, such as drought, flood, weather aberrations, poor soil health maintenance and faulty water management practices have contributed immensely towards the deceleration of total factor productivity in the region. An effort has been made in the present publication to critically assess and analyse the situation and suggest a “way forward” to revive the situation and move ahead with a stronger determination for better life and prosperity of our country-men.

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Dr. Ashim Kumar Sarkar is the Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi. He obtained his Ph.D. Degree from the Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, I.A.R.I., New Delhi in the year 1980. He has 35 years of working experience in the Agricultural Universities of Bihar and Jharkhand. He has Post doctoral research experience at BARC, Mumbai. He has been the project leader on Acid soil Management in the country. He has also worked as Nodal officer of National Agricultural Technology Project and as Director, State Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (SAMETI) for several years. He is the project leader of ICAR Niche Area of Excellence on soil, water and plant nutrient management for rainfed crops at B.A.U., Ranchi. He has written several books, book chapters and more than 100 research papers in National and International Journals. He has received several awards for his academic and research pursuits.