Restoration Agriculture
Saket Kushwaha
9781774690833
258 pages
Arcler Education Inc
Overview
In many communities in the world, the population lives on agriculture. Smallholder agriculture covers 75% of agricultural production, most of which are rain-fed agriculture. This number indicates that the impact of population explosion in rural areas is prompting communities to adopt unsustainable farming practices, like burning of tropical rain forests to grow crops, planting on steep slopes, entering fragile marginal ecosystems, and overgrazing and over cropping. This volume estimates that one-sixth of the globe’s land area (nearly 2 billion hectares) has been degraded due to overgrazing and negative farming practices. Water supply for agricultural purposes is becoming scarcer, and there is almost no land reserve that can be used to expand the agricultural base. Come 2025, nearly 3 billion people in 48 countries shall be affected by severe water shortages throughout the year or some months. The volume recommends suitable and site-specific technologies to reverse poverty and food insecurity issues. Some of the chapters mentioned include: chapter 1: philosophies of restoration agriculture on small farms, chapter 2: soil food web and chapter 3: conservation farming among others. Both scientific and indigenous knowledge available to the community should effectively facilitate this process, and farmers must actively participate in designing, implementation and evaluation of these technologies.
Author Bio
Prof. Saket Kushwaha, currently the Vice Chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi University is specialized in resource management and sustainable agriculture development. After his higher studies from Banaras Hindu University, he joined Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, Nigeria in 1993 and taught various courses on Agriculture Economics and Management at undergraduate, post graduate and Ph.D. level. Prof. Kushwaha rose to the rank of Professor at ATBU in the year 1999 and in 2006 he joined Bananas Hindu University (BHU), India as professor in agriculture economics and became the Vice Chancellor of Lalit Narayan Mithila University for one term 2014-2017. He has more than 100 publications in national and international journals of repute, supervised 24 Ph.D. students and authored 17 books / book chapters. Prof Kushwaha is life member of 10 Professional Bodies and sits in the panel of editorial boards. Worked extensively in the field of Zero Emission Research Initiatives (ZERI) propagating the mission of sustainable development under the aegis of "Waste is Wealth" concept. He is also the recipient of 17 national and international
awards which includes award from Sulabh International Gold Medal in 2016 for sanitation management. 27 years of teaching, research, extension and community service experience with 23 years in administration. Handled over 10 national and International projects majorly funded by World Banks. Coordinated USAID project on Cowpea Research Support Programme (CRSP) in Nigeria for 10 years from 1996 to 2006. Working with NGOs and mega agriculture farms for Green Farm Planning.
