Sustainable crop production faces threat: Experts

Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 9

Forecasting a serious threat to sustainable crop production, scientists have estimated that by 2050 salinity may affect about 20 million hectares of arable land, causing over three-fold increase in area under salt affected soil as compared to the current estimate of 6.73 million hectares.

In a paper published on the subject, DK Sharma, Director of the Karnal-based, Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) and Anshuman Singh, a horticulture scientist at the institute have stated that the twin problems of excessive salt accumulation and water logging have become particularly alarming in the north-western states.

Salinity has caused massive land degradation in north-western India, which in turn has adversely affected the agro-ecosystem sustainability and rendering cultivated soils unproductive, the paper states. In the near future, if continued unabated, salinity can create severe environmental impact by altering the geo-hydrological features to the extent of rapid mobilisation of primary and secondary fossil salts stored in lower soil profiles and even cause the problem of river salinisation, it adds.

Pointing out that the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan also greatly suffer from the problem of marginal quality waters, the paper cautions that this problem would also significantly increase in the forseeable future due to planned expansion of irrigated area and intensive use of natural resources to cater to an increasing population.

The replacement of perennial trees and shrubs with rotational crops and faulty irrigation practices has led to the rise in water table, which ultimately brings dissolved salts to the upper layers of the soil.

Estimating the annual monetary loss doe to soil salinity in Haryana alone to be close to Rs 2,000 million, the paper warns that the water scarcity—salinity nexus would have very serious socio-economic and environmental implications in the near future.

The business-as-usual approach based on the use of improved seeds, liberal irrigation and heavy use of agro chemicals adopted to enhance the agricultural production in the Green Revolution period, which lacked concern for social and environmental sustainability, may no longer work in a changing scenario characterised by limitations such as diversion of agricultural land for other uses, unabated land degradation, water scarcity and climate induced risks, the paper contends.

There is growing realization and intensive water and energy driven agriculture pursued since the 1960s has resulted in huge damages to soil productivity, water quality, bio-diversity and uneven productivity gains across crops and regions.