Efforts on to bring rice fallows into cultivation

Odisha has about cultivable land of 6.5 million hectares of out of the total geographical area of 15.6 million ha – 41.16 per cent. Main crop rice is cultivated in 3.8 million ha which accounts for 75-80 per cent of the total cultivated area, as per Odisha Agriculture Statistics 2013-14.

However, it has been a concern that a large portion of potentially productive cropland remains fallow during the winter (Rabi) season after the Kharif crop is harvested. This happens due to several constraints. Around 2 million hectares remain fallow in the winter season in Odisha.

 Constraints that create fallow lands:

Late harvest of Kharif crop or excessive soil wetting after rice harvest leads to delayed planting and low productivity of Rabi crop. Considering all these issues, the major challenge for the state is to increase the productivity and profitability of these lands. Bringing these fallow lands into cultivation could substantially improve food production and enhance the livelihoods of rural communities. Availability of drought, flood, and salt-tolerant rice varieties and short-duration pulse crops, along with improved agronomy, water management and mechanisation and technology targeting using GIS and remote sensing, significant numbers of potential rice-fallows can be brought under cultivation.

Once the Kharif paddy is harvested, the fields which are suitable for taking up a second crop with available residual soil moisture or through optimum use of irrigation water can be explored further. Potential crops for rice fallows could be a pulse, mungbean, lentil, urd bean, lathyrus, mustard and groundnut and other crops. A detailed characterisation of resource profile is needed to efficiently target these potential fallows.

Therefore, The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has identified and recognised this problem and has strategically placed a well-designed initiative called ‘Targeting Rice-Follow’ under IRRI-Odisha project – “Increasing Productivity of Rice-based Cropping Systems and Farmer’s Income with support from Agriculture and Farmer’s Empowerment department.

Moreover, IRRI experts are continuously engaged in delivering geo-spatial solutions through ‘extrapolation domain suitability maps’ based on optimal soil moisture availability period and different other parameters for targeting Rabi crops and disseminate stress-tolerant varieties (STRVs) with improved cropping systems to target the potential rice-fallows and Kharif fallows under multi-stress prone zones of Odisha.

The Rice-follow agronomical interventions are involved with small and marginal farmers by conducting the pulses cluster demonstrations and adaptive trials in the farmer’s field. The interventions are carried out with support from research collaborative partners Odisha University of Agriculture & Technology (OUAT) and National Rice Research Institute (NRRI), NGO partners and progressive & women farmers.

What the interventions aim at

High-yielding crops for rice-fallows:

Agronomical interventions: With improved management practices of pulses (green gram & black gram), the following agronomical interventions are being promoted:

Collaborating with CGIAR institutions for Multi-Institutional Trials: Under the “Multi-Institutional Trials on Rice-Fallow”, the initiative led by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Union Ministry of Agriculture, five crops – sweet potato, black gram, green gram, chick pea and pigeon pea) have been demonstrated by four different CGIAR organisations along with IRRI in several districts of Odisha.

Several steps are also being taken to reach out to more number of farmers for rice fallow interventions

Hence, an integrative approach of advanced remote-sensing and geospatial analysis-based targeting method dovetailed with cropping system-based research can ensure increased income of farmers and allow considerable scope to improve the productivity of rice-based system.

Deepti Saksena, Specialist-Communication and Pavan Kumar Yeggina, Specialist-Geographical Information Systems

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