Compatible package-based agriculture systems: an urgent need for agro-ecological balance and climate change adaptation

Highlights

• Resource-conservation practices are emerging for attaining sustainability in agriculture.

• The research is now progressing towards combined application of emergent agronomic practices.

• Role of agro-climatic zones is imperative in developing compatible agronomic packages.

• Compatible agriculture packages may help in buffering the yield penalty occurred one system.

• Compatible agriculture packages would be the need for attaining true sustainability in agriculture.

Abstract

Besides contributing majorly in the growth of a country, agriculture is one of the severely affected sectors at present. Several modifications and adaptations are being made in agricultural practices to cope-up with the declining soil fertility and changing climate scenarios across the world. However, the development and adoption of a single agricultural practice may not help in the holistic mitigation of the impacts of climate change and may result in economic vulnerability to farmers. Therefore, it is high time to develop and recommend a group of agricultural practices i.e. package-based agriculture system having some compatibility for one another in the long term. In this article, a viewpoint has been given on some emergent agronomic practices adopted in the tropical agro-ecosystems which have potential to be developed as compatible agricultural package in combination. Moreover, we also emphasized on exploring some key indicators/environmental factors to assess the compatibility of different agronomic practices. For identifying the research transition from single to combined agricultural practices, a bibliometric analysis was performed by using conservation agriculture (CA), the system of rice intensification (SRI), organic agriculture and soil (biochar) amendment as the major agronomic practices being used for improving agro-ecological services such as improving nutrient cycling, soil fertility and crop productivity as well as climate change mitigation. The results revealed that scientific communities are now paying attention to exploring the role of combined agricultural practices for agro-ecological balance and climate change adaptation. Moreover, the limitations of the adoption of agronomic packages under different agro-climatic zones have also been highlighted. The recommendations of the study would further help the environmental decision-makers to develop potential measures for climate change mitigation without compromising the agro-ecological balance.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Agricultural policies / Bibliometric analysis / Biochar / Conservation agriculture / GHG emission / Organic farming / SRI / Sustainable agriculture

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Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the financial support as research fellowship from the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi, India. Authors extend their thanks to handling editor and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions and critical comments for improving this article.

Authors’ contribution

ASR conceived the idea which was further elaborated by RS. RS, PV and TK did extensive literature survey, outlined the manuscript structure and prepared the figures of the manuscript. RS and PV drafted the original manuscript which was thoroughly reviewed by BPS and ASR. RS and ASR finalized the manuscript.

Compliance with the ethical standards

Authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interest among them. The manuscript is drafted by following all the guidelines of the ethical standards.

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