Effective Utilisation of Lowland Eco-System for Water and Crop Productivity in Eastern India

Abstract There is no option other than to increase the food production to meet the increasing demand for food with ever-increasing population growth rate. There is also very little or no scope of horizontal expansion due to land limitation, the question of vertical expansion is the only way to fit with the situation. Genetically improved crop variety, hybrids, mechanized agriculture, higher rate of fertilizers and chemicals application may give one or two more green revolution, but the question lies how far it can sustain greenness? Suitable farming system has to be devolved under such situation. A combination of crops and animals including pisciculture has been suggested for effective utilization of lowland eco-system in eastern region of the country to increase the opportunity of employment as well as to supply protein and fat in human diet. A combination of fish-rice-vegetable cultivation has been tried in a low-lying risk prone so far unproductive land eco-system. A vast low lying area remains submerged in 2.0 to 2.5 m deep water during entire rainy season. Several rice cultivars were tried but failed with a lower degree of success. The advantage of the integrated approach of farming with rice, fish and vegetables was mainly attributed to an effective utilization of low land eco-system. This system opened up the possibility of growing summer vegetables like bitter gourd, cucurbits or okra and rainy season vegetables like tomato, cowpea. The system gave an additional yield of 1.31 tons fishes of various categories was obtained from the water body up till water recedes. Keywords: Lowland productivity, Crop and Water Management, Eco-system Cite this Article Zaman A, Parveen Zaman, Md. Hedayetullah et al. Effective Utilisation of Lowland Eco-system for Water and Crop Productivity in Eastern India. Research & Reviews: Journal of Ecology . 2016; 5(1): 27–30p.