Is Organic Farming an Unjustified Luxury in a World with too many hungry People?

The soaring food prices on the global markets over the past one to two years have given proponents of classical Green Revolution thinking an opportunity to renew their claims that high input agriculture based on chemical fertilizer and pesticides is the blanket solution for poor countries and farmers. This situation has also led others to question whether we should abandon all the environmental considerations in agricultural policies over the last 25 years, and relieve the regulatory burden on agriculture, and put food production in full throttle like in the good old days in the 1970s. However, as always, the solutions proposed depend on the perception of the problem. In fact, there is little evidence that just producing more food in the North will help solve the food insecurity in the South in a sustainable way. Nor is it evident that returning to subsi-dized artificial fertilizers in the South would make any significant contribution to addressing the food insecurity among those communities of the South that are currently food insecure

Agronomic biofortification of zinc in rice for diminishing malnutrition in South Asia

Zinc (Zn) is increasingly recognized as an essential trace element in the human diet that mediates a plethora of health conditions, including immune responses to infectious diseases. Interestingly, the geographical distribution of human dietary Zn deficiency overlaps with soil Zn deficiency. In South Asia, Zn malnutrition is high due to excessive consumption of rice with low Zn content. Interventions such as dietary diversification, food fortification, supplementation, and biofortification are followed to address Zn malnutrition. Among these, Zn biofortification of rice is the most encouraging, cost-effective, and sustainable for South Asia. Biofortification through conventional breeding and transgenic approaches has been achieved in cereals; however, if the soil is deficient in Zn, then these approaches are not advantageous. Therefore, in this article, we review strategies for enhancing the Zn concentration of rice through agronomic biofortification such as timing, dose, and method of Zn fertilizer application, and how nitrogen and phosphorus application as well as crop establishment methods influence Zn concentration in rice. We also propose data-driven Zn recommendations to anticipate crop responses to Zn fertilization and targeted policies that support agronomic biofortification in regions where crop responses to Zn fertilizer are high

Maximizing Growth and Yield Components: Comparative Analysis of Surface and Subsurface Drip Irrigation in Intensively Farmed Rice Systems

Water scarcity is a critical issue in arid and semi-arid regions worldwide, necessitating efficient irrigation methods in agriculture. This study evaluated the effectiveness of surface and subsurface drip irrigation systems in direct-seeded rice (DSR) followed by zero-till wheat or maize, compared to conventional puddled transplanted rice (PTR) systems. The two-year experiment, conducted at the International Rice Research Institute's South Asia Regional Centre in Varanasi, India, employed a randomized complete block design with eight treatments. Results showed that DSR followed by zero-till wheat with subsurface drip irrigation at 60-cm spacing significantly outperformed other treatments. This system increased rice grain yield by 6.52% and 18.82%, straw yield by 7.68% and 13.45%, and total biomass by 8.30% and 9.73% in 2020 and 2021, respectively, compared to PTR followed by zero-till wheat. Subsurface drip irrigation also led to improved plant growth parameters, including plant height and number of tillers, and enhanced yield attributes such as number of panicles and filled grains per panicle. The study concludes that subsurface drip irrigation in DSR systems offers a promising solution for sustainable intensification and efficient use of water and energy in rice-based cropping systems. However, long-term, multi-location trials are recommended to establish precise water and energy savings under various conditions

Data on mechanized crop establishment methods (Direct seeding by seed drill and transplanting by machine) and rice-fallow areas suitable for short duration pulses in Odisha

Two types of experiments conducted in multi-location on-farm trials to evaluate the mechanized crop establishment methods (Drill-Direct Seeded Rice and Mechanical Transplanted Rice) alternative to traditional crop establishment methods (Manual transplanted rice and broadcasting followed by beushening) in three districts of Odisha over three years (2017 to 2019). Two types of experiments were also conducted to evaluated the performance of short duration pulses or oilseeds in the rice-fallow areas for increasing the cropping intensity and system productivity. The yield data were collected manually from different treatments under each experiment over three years. We also combined multi-temporal Earth Observation (EO) data from Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-1 satellite sensors from 2018 to 2021 to identify rice-fallow areas and suitable rice-fallow areas for cultivation of short duration pulses and oilseeds

Maize on-farm trial data on crop management, hybrid selection and nutrient management from plateau ecology of Odisha, India

Maize is the staple crop cultivated during the monsoon season in the rainfed uplands in tribal-dominated plateau regions of Odisha in eastern India. However, productivity is low because of multiple factors, including poor adoption of best management practices. We conducted three types of experiments viz..single vs. layered best management practices, hybrids, and decision support tools on nutrient management for two years (2013 and 2014) to explore the opportunities for reducing rainfed maize yield gaps. On-farm trials were conducted in Mayurbhanj district in Odisha and data were collected manually from the treatments in each experiment and processed in excel file and analyzed using R software

Large-scale data of crop production practices applied by farmers on their largest rice plot during 2018 in eight Indian states

Landscape Diagnostic Survey (LDS) data contains current rice production practices of rice applied by 8,355 farmers in eight states of India. The objective of collecting this data is to bridge the existing data-gap and to generate data-based evidence that can help in evidence-based planning. The LDS is designed in a way that data is collected from randomly selected farmers spread uniformly within a KVK (government extension system) domain/district. Survey questionnaire captures all production practices applied by farmers from land preparation to harvesting, including detailed sections on rice establishment, fertilizer use, weed control and irrigation application. Data is captured through electronically enabled Open Data Kit (ODK) tool on mobile phone or tablet

Spray volume optimization with UAV-based herbicide application for effective droplet deposition and weed control in direct-seeded rice

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) represent a cutting-edge technology that holds the promise of revolutionizing the conventional tasks carried out in the realm of agriculture. On a global scale, UAVs are gaining prominence for pesticide applications, particularly with a focus on utilizing low spray volumes. Nevertheless, there remains a notable gap in research concerning the impacts of employing low spray volumes on herbicide efficacy. Hence, multi-location field studies were conducted at Agricultural Research Station, Bhavanisagar and Wetland Station, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India in 2022 to evaluate the impact of different spray volumes using UAV and Knapsack Manual Sprayer (KMS) on droplet deposition, droplet density, and weed control efficacy. The treatments included UAV sprays at 30 and 45 L ha-1, as well as KMS at 500 L ha-1, with a weedy check as a control. Bispyribac-sodium 10% SC was applied at a rate of 35 g a.i ha-1 during the 2-to 3-leaf stage of the crops. The results revealed that droplet deposition, area coverage, and volume median diameter were affected by sprayer type (UAV and KMS). However, the two spray volumes tested using the UAV method provided similar droplet parameters. The KMS system at 500 L ha-1 exhibited the highest droplet deposition, while the UAV system achieved better droplet distribution at a spray volume of 30 L ha-1. Remarkably, the UAV system at 30 L ha-1 demonstrated effective weed control, which was statistically comparable to the KMS system at 500 L ha-1. These findings emphasize that the UAV spraying system with a spray volume of 30 L ha-1, delivering effective weed control while utilizing less carrier volume compared to the manual knapsack spraying method. Thus, the UAV spray system has great potential as a viable alternative to manual knapsack spraying for herbicide application in direct-seeded rice

Dry-direct seeded rice experiments in Odisha

On-farm trials were conducted from 2016 to 2018 in four districts of Odisha (Mayurbhanj, Cuttack, Bhadrak, and Puri to evaluate the potential of dry-direct seeding of rice (DSR) in combination with integrated weed management (IWM) to reduce the yield gap and increase the income of rice farmers in Odisha where traditional practice of beushening has been practiced. The experiments were conducted in collaboration with Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), and National Rice Research Institute (NRRI). Agronomic data were collected manually from the treatments in each experiment and processed in excel file. Data on labour use, seed, cost of cultivation, grain yield, straw yield, gross income, net benefit and benefit cost ration were collected or calculated for each experiment and presented in excel file