Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) in a Sustainable Rice-Wheat Cropping System

With depleted soils and reduced ground water levels from intensive agriculture, India’s rice and wheat crops are in crisis. Yet the nation’s population will rise from today’s 1.18 billion people to as many as 1.5 billion by 2020, with 25 per cent more mouths to feed. The ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1970s saw India’s rice production keep pace with population growth, but only up to the late 1990s when soil fertility and ground water problems worsened. Coupled with the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the neglect of organics, soil damage was compounded by health hazards to humans and animals. This trend, recognized elsewhere in Asia, led to the concept of the ‘Integrated Nutrient Management (INM)’ system in sustainable rice-wheat cropping. INM advocates the use of both inorganic and organic plant nutrients and is gaining growing recognition. Here, the authors analyze the rice-wheat cropping crisis and its remedies together with the importance of the INM system in modern Indian agriculture.