Question

Describe any five strategies that make agriculture sustainable.

Answer 1

1. Intercropping: Intercropping is a strategy used by farmers to combat soil erosion. In this method, several crops are planted together in strips or alleys between trees and shrubs. This design provides shade (reducing water loss from evaporation), ensures retention of soil moisture, and can also produce fruit, fuel wood, fodder, or trimmings to be made into mulch. Intercropping is also termed as alley cropping.
2. Crop Rotation: When the same crop is grown in the field every year, the soil becomes depleted in certain minerals. The soil loses its fertility even after the use of fertilizers and ultimately erosion sets in. Rotation of crops is an important method for checking erosion and maintaining productivity of soil. The crop in the fields should be changed after two years. Growing two or more different crops in sequence in a field is termed as crop rotation or crop sequencing.
3. Agroforestry: Ever since man began cultivating crops and domesticating animals, he has been practising agroforestry. Agroforestry is the system of land use that combines the growing and raising of crops and/or livestock along with plants that belong to the forest. The land can be used to raise agricultural crops and trees and to rear animals. For hundreds of years, farmers have nurtured trees in their fields, pasturelands, and around their homes. Some examples are growing tea and coffee under the shade of trees, intercropping under coconut trees, and home gardens. Also, ginseng, mushrooms, and decorative flowers that are sold for their medicinal and aesthetic use are being grown under forest cover.
4. Polyvarietal cultivation: Polyvarietal cultivation is essentially having more than one variety of the same crop grown on one farming land site.
5. Polyculture: Monoculture (or monocropping) is defined as the high-yield agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land in the absence of rotation through other crops. Corn, soybeans, wheat, and, to some degree, rice are the most common crops grown with monocropping techniques.