Adaptation of Agriculture in Central Asia

1. Adaptation of Agriculture in Central Asia Practical Actions & Available Technologies for Pilot Cases for Sustainable Agriculture Kaushik Ghosh 18 June, 2013 Dushanbe, Republic of Tajikistan

2. Key Issues to Address Land /Soil Degradation Water Supply Constraints Losses in Yield • Acidification, increased salinity of soil, Leaching • Erosion by water & wind • Crusting, Compaction, hard-setting • Increasing desertification of Aral sea causing increased aridification of land • Increasing desertification – unpredictable rainwater availability • Glacial melt – increase flow rate causing runoff in short term • Glacial melt - decreased flow rate in the mid term • Increased salinity and / or pollution of ground water • Temperature increase causing loss of yield • Pests Arrest land degradation and improve soil fertility Improve water management for agriculture Integrated pest management to reduce yield loss

3. Zero Tillage: Paradigm Shift Old Paradigm New Paradigm • Soil Tillage is necessary to produce a crop • Burying of plant residues with tillage • Bare soil between crops • Increased temperatures from direct solar radiation • Burning crop residues • Strong emphasis on soil chemical processes • Chemical pest control, first option • Green manure cover crops and crop rotations are options • Tillage is not necessary for crop production • Crop residues remain on the soil surface as mulch • Permanent soil cover • Reduced soil temperatures • Burning mulch prohibited • Strong emphasis on soil biological processes • Biological pest control, first option • Green manure cover crops and crop rotations compulsory Soil resource exploitation resulting in unsustainable land use Rational site-oriented use of soil ensures sustainable land use

4. Zero Tillage: Evolution

5. Zero Tilling – Deploy practical techniques Actions

6. Instruments for Zero Tillage Zero Tillage Seeder Crop Residue Chopper

7. Rehabilitation of salt-affected lands (Australia, North Africa) • What is it? • Water logging and increased salinity leads to sodic wasteland. • This can be mitigated by use of halophytic plants – salt tolerant shrubs that decrease salinity. • Main Benefits: • Improved vegetation cover of waste lands • Capture and conservation of water as groundwater • Opens up soil • Increased air exchange • Improved hydraulic conductivity • Improved root environment for other plants • Decreased rhizosphere pH • Enhanced leaching of salts • Improved soil texture

8. Halophyte Groupings

9. Halophytes – Evolution Actions

10. Additional Soil Management Methods Actions Soil Amendments Optimal Fertilizer Usage Topographical Enhancement • High mg soil influenced with Ca intervention (addition of Gypsum) • Soil structure - Calcium causes soil particles to move apart and aerate, while mg causes them to stick together, thus soil dry and crack. • High mg can cause K & Ca deficiency • Less aggregate stability and greater dispersion due to higher water absorption • Forms hard surface crusts – erosion problems • Increase nitrates to mitigate higher salinity • Use of organic fertilizers – compost, vermi-compost • Include fly-ash for nutrient balancing • Use of wastewater residues as fertilizer after appropriate treatment • Mulching of furrows under saline conditions to reduce evaporation • Most of water evaporation occurs, when the soil is wet, within a few days after rain or irrigation • When the soil surface is more often wet, as in the case of the sprinkler irrigation or the rainfall, the evaporation rate increases • Surface mulches have been used to improve the soil water retention, lower the soil temperature, and reduce the wind velocity at the soil surface of arid lands • They can also improve the water penetration by impeding runoff, protecting the soil from the raindrop splash, and reducing the soil crusting

11. Agricultural Water Management Rainfed Managed irrigation Field Conservation Practices Groundwater Harvesting Supplementary Irrigation Surface water irrigation Ground water irrigation Wastewater treatment & irrigation Drainage management and irrigation Source: FAO

12. Water Harvesting (Eg: India, Mid East, Peru, Australia)

13. Harvesting – Functional techniques Actions

14. Managed Irrigation Water Flow Water Losses • Why use it? • Understand, measure, assess and apply the managed use of water around the farm to create efficient use and reduce environmental risks • Goals: • Water used efficiently • Effective drainage and salt disposal • Characteristics: • Extraction does not exceed replacement • Losses in delivery minimized • Waste water recycled Water Reservoir Storage Loss Water Released to farm Transportation Loss Water Delivered to farm Ambient water: Rain, dew, soil Farm Storage Storage Loss Tailwater return Water Applied Application Loss Water Consumed by crop

15. Managed Irrigation – Minimizing Losses Actions

16. Treated wastewater used for Irrigation • What is it? • Waste water used as a resource (source of nutrients and moisture) • Benefits: • Addresses disposal issue • Source of nutrients • Source of moisture • Allows freshwater to be diverted for primary use 1 2 3 6 5 3 4

17. Treatment Process – Practical techniques Actions 1 • Preliminary Treatment: • Use screen to remove inorganic and large materials • Remove abrasive materials (grit, silt) • Primary Treatment: • Primary sedimentation tank where solid organic materials will be removed by gravity sedimentation • Resulting sludge removed from tank for further treatment • Secondary Treatment: • Settled waste water enters aeration tanks for allowing active biomass to ‘digest’ organic polutants • Material passes to ‘Clarifier’ where organics settle into sedimentation (and removed to primary tank) • Clarified waste water passes to tertiary treatment process • Tertiary Treatment: • Use of disinfectants to remove pathogens • Sunlight + micro organisms or chlorine reduce pathogens • Dissolved Air Flotation Filtration filters and disinfects for agricultural irrigation 2 3 4

18. Sludge Treatment – Practical Techniques Actions 5 • Sludge Treatment: • Anaerobic digestion of sludge (at 35degrees) • Methane produced is used as biogas for energy production • Waste heat from energy production used to maintain digestion process • Digested sludge transported to lagoons for natural solar evaporation • IFAS (Integrated Fixed film Activated Sludge): • Reduce nitrogen in existing wastewater plants • Introduce small free floating plastic cylinders to increase surface area for biological growth, increasing treatment capacity of plant 6

19. Integrated Pest Management • What is it? • Integrative use of all sustainable pest control methods. • Use of biological and bio-technical control methods as opposed to chemical control methods • Benefits: • Keep pest population below economic injury level • Using sustainable pest management systems – with no adverse affect on land, soil and yield

20. Sustainable Integrated Pest Management Techniques Actions Biological Control Biotechnical Control • Getting benefits from organisms which survive / thrive on the pests. Symbiotic co-habitation of cultivar with control • Prevention of natural enemies • Plant spacing • Suitable pruning • Hedging & wind break • Enhancing efficiency of Natural Enemies • Growing plants which provide abundant supply to natural enemies around the cultivars • Mass rearing of natural enemies • Mass production of beneficial insects under controlled conditions which feed on pest eggs, larvae, and adults • Processes that interfere with the physiological and behavioral survival mechanisms of the pest using natural or synthetic materials • Trapping: • Mass trapping of pest using ‘individualized pheromones’ • Mating Disruption: • Blanked cover of pheromones which disorient males from finding females and therefore break mating cycle

21. IPM – Practical guidelines Actions

22. Questions?

23. Zero Tillage – Benefits • Reduced susceptibility to land degradation through stubble retention, • More manageable soils and improved soil structure with higher levels of organic matter and biological activity, • Greater amounts of water harvested to grow the crop in dry areas, • Often less in-crop weed emergence and safer use of pre-emergent herbicide, with more precise seed placement and crop emergence, • Less labour, fuel and machinery costs per hectare; and improved whole farm profitability and sustainability