Resource Management Towards Sustainable Agriculture and Development

Contents: Foreword. Preface. Visions: 1. Factor FN: future farming, food, feed, fitness, fuel, fiber, freshwater, fishery, forestry, flora, fauna, fun, freedom global trends 2008/2025/2050/Manfred Kern.  2. Future biomass potential for food, animal feed, energy and biomaterials - fierce competition or peaceful coexistence/E.V. Falkenstein, G.A. Reinhardt. 3. The Rhizophere and its significance for food security/N. Claassen. Plant nutrition and soil health: 4. Managing soil fertility-evaluation of the soil organic matter content in the long term field experiments in differing soil and climate conditions/Jaromir Kubat and Jan Lipavsky. 5. Micronutrients disorders: challenges to sustain food grain production in Punjab, India/U.S. Sadana. 6. Managing nitrogen and nutrient use efficiency in crop production: an appraisal/S.K. Thakral. 7. Influence of plant density and nutrient management on pearlmillet (Pennisetum glaucum) in Semi Arid Environment/V.S. Rana, B.S. Rathore, R.K. Nanwal and Pawan Kumar. 8. Utilizing solid waste to improve land productivity for sustainable production/Manisha Basu, PBS Bhadoria, S.C. Mahapatra and A. Wais. 9. Sensing P deficiency and modulating plant responses: root ROS as critical factors/K. Swaraj, Anita Kumari, Ra, Dhari Vishisht and Sunita Sheokand. 10. Biofertilizers in sustainable agriculture/Neeru Narula, Ramesh Chander Anand and Manjula Vasudeva. 11. Microbial auxins and siderphores: promoting plant growth by biofertilization and bioprotection/Chritsian Dimkpa, Ales Svatos and Erika Kothe. 12. Ectomycorrhiza in sustainable ecosystem functioning: a closer look at the symbiotic association/Theodore Asiimwe, Katrin Krause, Ines Schlunk and Erika Kothe. 13. Effect of chelators on phytoextraction of Nickel by Indian Mustard from Industrial effluent contaminated soil/Sonal Vishnoi and Narsi R. Bishnoi. Genetic resources: 14. Storage carbohydrates modification to diversify crop utilization and improve food security in African countries/Ravindra N. Chibbar, Monica Baga, Seedhabadee Ganeshan and Eric K. Asare. 15. Maize towards food and nutritional security and poverty alleviation in Africa and Asia/Sain Dass, M.L. Jat, K.P. singh, P. Kumar, V.K. Yadav and O.P. Sharma. 16. Heat tolerance and adaptability in Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em. Thell) genotypes/R.K. Behl, Sameena Sheikh, Molla Assefa, Yogesh Jindal and Ashwani Kumar. 17. Enset (Ensete ventricosum) life line for food security and livelihood in semi arid tropical regions of Ethiopia/Molla Assefa Admasu Tsegaye and K.W-Giorgis. 18. Breeding clusterbean (Guar) an export potential arid legume for dry areas/S.K. Pahuja, R.N. Arora and B.S. Jhorar. 19. Biodiversity policies in the United States, Europe and Hungary/Pal Pepo. 20. Current status and future scope of genetically modified American cotton hybrids in Africa and Asia/B.S. Chhabra and Ashish Jain. Sustainable development for food and bioenergy: 21. Remote sensing tools in sustainable management of green renewable resources/Christoph Katsch. 22. Food security and development through sustainable crop production in Afghanistan/Mohd. Saalim Saaie A. Wais and Molla Assefa. 23. Integrated energy farming for rural development and poverty alleviation/Nasir El Bassam. 24. Potential of Jatropha cultivation in arid and semi arid areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat/R.L. Srivastava, Ranjana Arya and V.P. Tewari. 25. Bioenergy plantations and its potential for degraded wastelands in India with special reference to prosopis Juliflora/V.P. Tewari. 26. Animal nutrition in the 21st century-quo vadis?/Gerhard Flachowsky. 27. Enhancing the role of livestock production in African food security/Netsanet Beyero. Socio economic aspects: 28. Agricultural commodity production and trade policies for global cooperation and sustainable development/Hossana Solomon. 29. Profitability of wood production for generating bioenergy/Von Doderer, C. and Kleynhans, TE. 30. Empowering rural women through self help groups in Haryana, India/S.K. Mehta, Monika and Chander Bhan. 31. Role of micro finance in rural women/Neelma Kunwar and Priya Vashishtha.

The world population is continuously increasing especially in developing countries. This jeopardizes food security and is a serious cause of concern for the governments, policy planers and development functionaries globally and in particular countries locally. In order to achieve food security for all, it would be imperative to enhance crop and live stock production and productivity in a sustainable manner. Climate change, and dwindling earth oil resources impact agricultural production and call for more resilient energy alternatives like biomass energy. This would necessitate identifying fast growing plants adapted to tropical as well as temperate environs and an efficient bio fuel production technology.

Global agricultural production has registered spectacular growth during past few decades. This has been possible through the expansion of area sunder cultivation, the introduction of improved agro technology, the intensification of cropping patterns, use of high yielding crop varieties and the increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and irrigation. However, this growth has been accompanied by land degradation, salinization, chemical pollution of land and water over extraction of underground water deforestation, susceptibility to disease and built up of pest resistance favoured by the spread of monocultures. Therefore, research and development efforts are needed for natural resource management for food and biomass energy as well to ensure adequate agri based employment and livelihood opportunities for poverty alleviation all coherent elements of sustainability.

The papers included in this book pertain to plant nutrition, rhizosphere and biofertilizers, integrated natural resource management, crop improvement strategies in wheat, maize, clusterbean and Enset, biodiversity policies and genetically modified cotton hybrids, agricultural production practices, remote sensing, trade policies, pollution control, livestock production and management, livelihood strategies and women empowerment.