Abstract
An assessment of agrobiodiversity is critical for making agriculture and food production sustainable, but this work has received less attention of researchers. We have developed an Agroecosystem Diversity Index to show the status, challenges and offer suggestions to conserve and enrich agrobiodiversity. The index captures the diversity of the agroecosystem at landscape, species and genetic levels; and indicates the threats to agrobiodiversity and the response of the society. The index is computed for the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. Our findings show a moderate degree of agrobiodiversity in the region with an index of 0.39 and a range of 0.32 to 0.45 across the districts. The agroecosystem has become highly specialized with rice and wheat as the major crops. The increasing threat to agrobiodiversity and inadequate policy response to address the problem are the primary concerns. For sustainable management of agroecosystems in the region, it is necessary to introduce legumes to diversify the rice–wheat system, promote agroforestry to enhance landscape diversity and encourage optimum use of agrochemicals to enrich the soil microbiome. Natural resource depletion is a major concern, and conservation technologies and practices shall be useful in arresting the degradation process in the region.
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Data availability
This work is based on data collected from secondary sources. Most of these data are available in the form of publication. The indicator-wise data sources and their web-links (wherever available) have been attached as Supplementary Table S1. Authors also welcome correspondence with the scholar for sharing data collected through personal communication with government departments.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research for funding the study and to Dr S K Chaudhary for his invaluable support. The authors are also thankful to Dr Kuldeep Singh, Dr K C Bhatt, Dr Balvinder Shukla, and Dr Naleeni Ramawat for their valuable input to the workshop organized to select the indicators.
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The study “Agricultural sustainability in India: a parametric study” was funded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India.
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The study “Agricultural sustainability in India: a parametric study,” on which this paper is based, was conceived by CR and SP, who directed the work, secured the funding and supervised the work. PC guided KN in data collection and analysis, and PC and SP drafted the manuscript. All the authors participated in and approved the completion of the manuscript.
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Roul, C., Chand, P., Pal, S. et al. Assessment of agrobiodiversity in the intensive agriculture: a case study of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. Biodivers Conserv 31, 397–412 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02336-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02336-y