To begin with, ten farmers agreed to devote a small section of their land, roughly an acre each, to try out the new approach. They sowed seed and used fertilisers through indigenously made ‘no-till-seed-cum-fertiliser drill’, which caused minimal disturbance to the soil. While there was a better yield at the time of harvest, what convinced farmers more was a saving of Rs 1,000 per acre on tillage-related costs with no loss of productivity, said Dr Abrol. Consequently, zero-till seeding of wheat that was practised on only 25 acres in 2006, rose to 100 acres in 2007.

The credit for the effort goes to Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Mahendragarh, which is managed by Haryana Agriculture University, Hissar, and which provided the drill that cost approximately Rs 40,000. “Most farmers in Tigra now favour the practice, and have now agreed to bring the entire 1,000 acres sown area in the village under CA next year,” added Abrol. They, however, would need the requisite equipment, drills in particular, to make this happen.

Dr Abrol, however, cautions that zero-till alone cannot bring lasting benefits. “International experts say the impact of zero-till will not sustain over the years unless an entire set of supplementary measures are applied progressively and in totality. Such efforts require maintaining crop residues on the field, planning and practising crop rotation, and other practices integral to the dynamics of the CA approach, apart from conservation practices adopted to improve water availability and other constraints.”

Though the concept is global, it must be tempered with a location-specific approach, said Dr Abrol. “We need to move from piecemeal efforts to an integrated approach. To reap maximum benefits from CA, all the relevant stakeholders - farmers, policy makers and scientists - need to work in tandem. While the basic concept of CA remains the same, one has to necessarily take into consideration the local factors as well,” said Dr Abrol.

... contd.