All types of organism including man are born, flourish, mature and at last meet their end on land. Land provides them all necessaries of life-food, clothing and shelter. Without land no organism can survive, even their existence cannot be dreamt without land. Hence land is very useful to us. Nature has provided land to us. It is a prime resource.
Land as a resource
Soil is the loose rock material, rich in humus and is capable of growing plants. It consists of a mixture of mineral and organic matter including sand, clay, decayed leaves, flower, minute bacteria and earth worms. It contains varying amount of moisture and air between the solid particles. It serve as a source of food.
Major features of land-use in India
- India has extensive flat and fertile plains. They have made India an agricultural country. Various civilisations have originated, blossomed and bore fruit.
- 51% of the total geographical area of the country is under cultivation. No other country in the world has such a large area under agriculture. This is the most satisfactory feature of land-use pattern in India.
- Agriculture provides not only foodgrains to the teeming millions of population but also raw material to industries. Agriculture in India forms the backbone of the economy.
- Area under fallow land has come down from 7% to 5% since Independence. This has been possible due to greater use of manures and fertilisers and adoption of new techniques and technologies for conserving soil moisture in such lands.
- Despite very meagre land under pastures and meadows India is able to feed the large population of drought animals and bovine cattle.
- Area under forests is constantly increasing due to our efforts like afforestation and planting trees under various programmes.
- Forest cover in India is as low as 21% of the total geographical area. For balanced development of a country it is necessary that it must have 33.3% forest cover. Population pressure for residential and other activities like agriculture, industries, trade and commerce have depleted the forest cover. The low percentage of forest land had resulted in the ecological imbalances.
Disequilibrium between growing population and dwindling forest cover in the country has worsened the situations. Presence of carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere and temperature has increased. This is known as ‘green house’ effect. There is a danger of snowcaps being melted and flooding the low lying thickly populated areas, thus threatening the very existence of large population.
Need for proper planning for use of available land
It is a fact that total availability of land in every country is fixed, it cannot be enlarged or increased. In the present circumstances there is an increasing pressure on land of various purposes. So it becomes imperative to plan for proper use of land in order to get maximum advantage from it.
We can do this by adopting following measures:
- Adoption of suitable measures to check soil erosion.
- Stoppage of desertification by increasing water availability in arid region and adopting afforestation programmes.
- Measure to conserve soil fertility.
- Check on floods.
- Bringing wastelands back to other uses.
- Adoption of modern and scientific means of farming.
- Increasing soil productivity.
These measures would not only conserve land resources but a balance would be struck among various uses of land.
Conservation of soil
We can conserve our land resources by adopting the following measures:
- By educating, informing and sensitizing all stakeholders about various aspects of this precious resources and it sustainable use.
- By nourishing the land through conservation of rain water, recharging of ground water and judicious water use.
- By anchoring soil to the earth through tree plantation, afforestation and enhanced green cover.
- By enriching soil fertility through leguminous crops and adoption suitable crop rotations that support diversification.
- By nurturing soil health through recycling organic wastes and adoption of Integrated Plant Nurtrient management practices.
- By protecting land from overuse of chemical pesticides through adoption of Integrated Pest Management practices.
- By saving land from overgrazing through suitable animal husbandry and ‘Social’ and other fencing.
- By adoption of resources conservation technologies such as zero-tillage, reduced tillage, surface seeding, bed-planting, use of drip and sprinkler irrigation and agronomic practices that promote precision agriculture, save water, energy and improve productivity.
- By creating suitable incentives to conserve land such as security of land tenure, productive and conservation techniques, people’s participation, charges and sanctions.
- By empowering local communities to make and implement decisions in order to tap knowledge, enthusiasm and energy and creating forums for negotiation and conflict resolution.
- By adopting the integrated waterhead approach for rainfed farming which promotes need-based soil conservation measures in arable and non-arable lands.