An agroclimatic approach to agricultural development in India

Abstract

After independence, successive planning efforts for nearly four decades have resulted in many successes as weil as shortcomings in Indian agriculture. More than three-fold increase in production has been achieved by commodity-oriented programmes involving major technological breakthrough. This resulted in heavy exploitation of natural resource stock without looking at alternative perspectives. Thus major associated problems like linear flow of natural resources (depletion or degradation) and issues related to equity, in terms of inter-regional developmental disparities and inter-generational injustice, have recently received attention and recognition by Indian policy makers and planners. While realising these systemic problems, the application of systems approaches offered suitable option to the improvement of problem situations in agriculture. Accordingly, the Planning Commission of India, framed an agroclimatic approach that assesses potential and problems in agroclimatically uniform resource regions. This paper discusses in depth the agroclimatic approach covering aspects of (i) agroclimatic information system and its application in agricultural development; (ii) characterisation of agroclimatic zones; and (iii) agroclimatic agricultural regional planning in India. Also, emphasis has been placed on understanding of broader environment of systems approaches dealing with not only farming systems research that forms an integral part of a long-term regional wide development effort, but also covers the agricultural technology management system in agroclimatic zone specific research efforts in India.