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Despite growing demands for food production because of an increasing population, in South Asia there are vast areas of land left fallow.
When there is insufficient irrigation for year-round cropping, lands are left fallow after the cultivation of rainfed rice, and even after irrigated
rice. After the rice harvest there is often adequate stored soil moisture, along with any subsequent rainfall, to support a following crop, at
least one of short duration. Legume yields are often poor and, as a result large areas with the potential for cultivating a post-rice crop are
left fallow. The main reasons for this are the suite of agronomic difficulties in establishing and growing a crop after rice, where a hard
plough-pan is deliberately created to retain water for rice culture. However, there are now proven technologies available (e.g., short-
duration legume varieties, seed treatments, mechanization) that would make it feasible and profitable to increase the area of land to grow
post-rice crops. Successful demonstration and extension of these technologies would open the way for greater income generation by the
economically disadvantaged rice cultivators of South Asia, who presently have few options for enterprise diversification. Mapping post-rice
fallows and rabi fallows using remote sensing imagery will help identify areas for demonstration and dissemination of this technology
which are potential areas.
Cropping pattern changes Land use change dynamics
1. Land use changes are a regular phenomenon due to agro-ecological, socio-economic and policy decisions.
Some changes are so significant that they make a large difference in the agro-economic scenario of the
place, specifically when water availability affects critically the decision making of the small holder farmers.
Chickpea expansion in some districts of Andhra Pradesh is a good example of such change. Chickpea
growing areas expanded in these districts gradually replacing another crop since there was a good
economic gain in growing it. Less farm operations and mechanization also promoted this crop.
2. Remotely sensed imagery can be effectively used to monitor cropland changes and identify the niches for
present changes in cropping pattern and its impact.
Land use / land cover
Groundnut / sorghum / fallows
Maize / mixed crops
Cotton-chilli
Orchards / mixed crops
Rice-mixed crops
Other LULC
Chickpea
2000-01 2012-13
RS-GIS unit, RDS
Tracking of crop expansion / yield estimations and impact
Andhra Pradesh
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