Improved Agricultural Practices to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emission

Climate change, along with increasing population is a major challenge for food availability, accessibility, security in developing countries. The present day climate is actually the after effect of exploited use of natural resources in the past. Even agriculture sector played a role in it by changing the heterogeneous environment to a manmade homogenous area for crop cultivation. Conservation agricultural practices are developed to reduce the severity of these issues. An attempt is made to understand the concept; through structured literature review to identify the ideas associated. Increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulted in increase in global temperature and decreased fresh water availability. Agriculture practices like burning of litter, anaerobic decomposition of organic matter, rice grown under flooded conditions etc. releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides to atmosphere. Cultivation using improved varieties, efficient cropping system, conservation tillage, proper crop residue management, cover crops and increased nutrient use efficiency tends to reduce the effect. Precision farming, use of slow release fertilizers, proper water management in rice fields, substitution of fossil fuels with crop residues, use of dung and energy crops, need specific agro forestry and grazing management practices have a profound effect on reducing greenhouse gas emission. Bio char produced from pyrolysis of plant and animal biomass sequestrates carbon, improves soil fertility, reduces pollution and enhances crop residue recycling. The data collected using CEAP and GRACE net efficiently depicted the long term and positive effects of these conservation measures to mitigate climate change. Proper cultivation practices thus reduces greenhouse gas emitted and it’s after effects.