Conservation Agriculture and Climate Change: An Overview

Conservation agriculture (CA) is the integrated management of the available natural resources such as soil, water, flora, and fauna with partial outside inputs which increases the efficiency of natural resource use. It provides sustainability in farming production through maintaining the quality of natural resources by stable or semi-stable organic cover to soil. Zero or minimum tillage or no-till (NT) and minimum disturbance of soil along with varying rotation of crops are a must for future prospects. CA is an integrated approach to agriculture cultivation that helps enhance food security, allay poverty, conserve biological diversity, and preserve ecosystem services. CA practices are also helpful in making farming systems more resilient to recent climatic changes. CA can comprise wide-ranging practices such as management of forage and farm animals, fallows improvement, combined cultivation of agricultural crops and trees as agroforestry, management of watershed, and management of areas which are reserved for village and community people. In this chapter, climate change predictions for Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) will be discussed. Then the potential of CA as a source to alleviate and acclimatize to climate change will be examined for climatically affected environments.