Conclusions: Perspectives on Conservation Agriculture

Feeding the increasing global population, which is projected to increase between 8.9 and 10.6 billion by 2050, there has been increasing demands for more improved/sustainable agricultural management practices that can be followed by farmers to improve productivity and maintain environmental sustainability without jeopardizing the ecosystem. About 95% of our food directly or indirectly comes from soil. It is a precious resource, and sustainable soil management is a critical socio-economic and environmental issue. South Asia (SA) has been experiencing high economic growth but still suffering from extreme rate of poverty, hunger, and deterioration of natural resources including soil. In this region, the presence of a large rainfed area with its associated challenges urgently calls for cost-effective resource conservation technologies such as conservation agriculture (CA). The Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of SA region is one of the hotspots for the adoption of no-till farming/CA. Although conventional tillage (CT)-based farming offers some important short-term benefits, long-term adoption of these practices may lead to the loss of soil organic carbon/fertility, poor soil health, and soil degradation. Conservation agriculture (CA) is being practiced globally approximately in 180 M ha of land, whereas in south Asia it remains less than 5 Mha. Thus, CA is one of the major sustainable soil/agricultural management systems that can meet the needs of farmers as well as offer numerous benefits to farmers as well as ecosystem services. CA is a multi dimensional approach that is studied not only for its positive environmental and ecological impacts but also as an alternative to reduce crop residue burning. In this chapter, issues, challenges, benefits, and future perspectives of CA have been discussed.