Regenerative Agriculture as Climate Smart Solution to Improve Soil Health and Crop Productivity Thereby Catalysing Farmers’ Livelihood and Sustainability

Abstract

The demand for food, water and energy will hike substantially in the coming decades; therefore, resource conservation strategies and technologies are crucial to sustainable development. Worldwide, agricultural production has been increasing drastically due to high-yield varieties that were input-intensive and demanded excessive chemical fertilisers and pesticides that ultimately impose soil addiction to chemical inputs, environmental degradation, GHG emissions and reduced crop response to inputs. A holistic site-suited framework needs to be adopted and scaled to reap sustainable production benefits as an integrated approach. This chapter highlights best bet practices, such as conservation agriculture, agroforestry systems, climate-smart agriculture, integrated farming system and the use of ICT tools for precision agriculture to cater to landscape management options. Additionally, securing food for all requires a paradigm shift from our traditional intelligence to artificial intelligence for precise management of soil fertility to enhance sustainable productivity. The advent and advancement of ICT and its implementation in natural resource management play a pivotal role in reducing environmental stress and enhancing productivity to sustain the farming community’s livelihood. The inclusion of crop diversification showed promising gains in net profitability, soil health and resilience to combat climate change through enhanced carbon sequestration in different agro-ecologies. To conclude, the current and future agriculture demand site-suited smarter and resilient technologies attain sustainable yield and combat climate change with reduced environmental footprints.