Sustainable Hill Agriculture : An Overview

Contents: Overview: 1. Hill agriculture: status and strategies in Indian Himalayas/U.C. Sharma, Vikas Sharma and Vishal Sharma. Natural resources management: 2. Rain water harvesting for sustainable Montane Agro-ecosystems/K. Bassi and Rajesh Singh. 3. Harvested water based farming system for production sustenance in drylands/H.L. Sharma and Rajesh Singh. 4. Degradation of catchments in lower Shiwaliks of Jammu and Kashmir/Vikas Sharma, Sanjay Arora and K.R. Sharma. 5. Management of problematic soils of Northwest Himalayas for sustainable hill agriculture/R.D. Gupta, Anil Kumar and B.C. Sharma. 6. Soil erosion and conservation in lower shiwaliks of Punjab/S.S. Kukal and S.S. Bawa. 7. Natural resource conservation technologies for sustainable crop production/S.K. Raina and Abha Chohan. 8. Agroforestry for the hills/Sandeep Sehgal and N.S. Raina. 10. Agroforestry: a potential land use in conservation of natural resources and sustainability of farming systems/S.K. Gupta and Sandeep Sehgal. Agronomical Interventions: 10. Potential of integrated nutrient supply and soil health improvement in sustainable cropping systems of Indian Himalayas/V.K. Suri and Anil Kumar. 11. Agro-technological advances for sustainable crop production in cold arid region/Jag Paul Sharma and Anand K. Singh. 12. Integrated weed management in hill agriculture/Anil Kumar, B.C. Sharma, A.S. Bali and Neetu Sharma. 13. Integrated pest management in food security-an overview/R.M. Bhagat. 14. Bio-intensive pest management in high altitude crops/R.K. Gupta. 15. Pest management in hill agro-ecosystem for sustainable production/Uma Shankar and Deepak Kumar. 16. Seed hardening techniques for rainfed farming/S. Manoharan, M. Mohamed Yassin and M. Mohamed Amanullah. Crop Improvement: 17. Conventional and advanced breeding approaches for maize improvement under North West Himalayas/G. Katna and R.K. Salgotra. 18. Promotion of Hybrid rice towards food security in Hilly regions/B.B. Gupta and R.K. Salgotra. 19. Prospects of Upland rice improvement for sustainable hill agriculture/R.K. Salgotra and Manmohan Sharma. 20. Sustainable upland rice cultivation in hills: a case study in Himachal Pradesh/B.S. Mankotia, P.K. Sharma and J. Shekhar. 21. Agro-biodiversity conservation in North Western Himalayas and implications in crop improvement/Manmohan Sharma, B.B. Gupta and R.K. Salgotra. 22. Cold stress: defense system towards physiological, biochemical and molecular mechanism/Gyanendra Kumar Rai and Pradeep K. Rai. Horticulture: 23. Cultivation of Saffron (Crocus Sativus L.): a high value low volume crop in temperate region of Jammu with reference to Kishtwar : an overview/C.S. Kalha and Vishal Gupta. 24. Prospects of sustainable horticulture in Hill agriculture/Parshant Bakshi and Akash Sharma. 25. Improved agronomy for hill orchards/Rakesh Kumar and Akash Sharma. 26. Vegetable cultivation in hills: principles and practices/Satesh Kumar and Deep Ji Bhat. 27. Vegetable seed production in hills/Sanjeev Kumar and Puja Rattan. Post harvest: 28. Post harvest considerations for temperate crops/Monika Sood. 29. Hill agriculture and its marketing: problems and prospects/Sudhakar Dwivedi and Tarunvir Singh. Subject index.

Agriculture is the predominant livelihood activity in hills. In India this region is spearhead over an area of 53.8 million ha, which is inhabited by 33.7 million people of who more than 90% live in rural setup. Agriculture is much more important for hills economy as scope for industrializations limited due to topographical constraints and environmental concerns. There are vast forests, pastures, grazing lands, miscellaneous groves and trees, much higher rainfall, moderate temperate and intensive natural vegetation which add lot of organic matter every year to soils. Naturally the fertility of soils in hills is comparatively high as compared to plain areas. Hills also have a comparatively advantage of niche over plains for production of the off-season vegetables; hi value vegetable seeds sub temperate and temperate fruits like apple, almond, kiwi etc., medicinal plants and other high value cash crops. However sustaining productivity in the hills is a major challenge. Sustainability is the ability of a system and its sub systems to maintain a certain well-defined level of performance or output over time. Sustainable agriculture development thus implies the management of resources including land, labour, capital, technology and water. The hills have limited cultivated land across the Indian Himalayas. Their economy is largely dependent upon agricultural crops, horticulture and livestock rearing. Farming in hills assumes greater significance in comparison to lowlands for reasons of fragility of environment. Agriculture is an important of all farming systems in the hills.