Scaling-up Agro-Technologies Using Agro-Eco Sub-Regions in the Target States

Agro Eco Regions/Sub-regions (AERs/AESRs) are near homogeneous area similar with respect to (a) broad soil groups, (b) overhead climate and (c) length of moisture availability period in relation to crop production. Efforts of zoning world soils /lands at global level has been tropicalized for minimizing the inadequacies of the concept and to suit the requirement of the Indian subcontinent using the revised length of growing period (LGP) with special reference to dryland agriculture. To address these inadequacies for developing agro-ecological zones/regions, LGP was taken as an index of crop production, since it considers soil-water balance as a direct function of moisture availability in a landform instead of the total annual rainfall. The map boundaries, depicting 20 (twenty) AERs in India were delineated by superimposing bio-climate and LGP on soil-scape. The LGP classes were further grouped into different feasible cropping systems in an agro-environment to delineate 60 (sixty) AESRs. For land use planning agro ecology concept has been considered as a vehicle for technology transfer to address the issues of agricultural land use planning, climate change, soil water availability and the livelihood of the farming community.