Rajasthan Soils

Despite the recent great strides in technology and mechanization, agriculture has remained the world's most important primary industry, in which the soil plays pivotal role. About 66 per cent of the global population, comprising of farmers derives its living directly from the soil. There are no natural resources more important than soil resource.

Whatever its production capacities, whether high in some places of irrigated pockets or low in major areas of dryland and desert, due to inherent limitations, the soil resource of Rajasthan, as a medium of growing crops, has furnished directly or indirectly, a significant share in the income of the state. Rajasthan, being geographically the second largest state in India, has proportionately a greater soil resource. Therefore, the soil resource in the state needs to be used extensively and efficiently so that the state finds an appropriate place in the national food, fibre and fodder production and the state economy is sustained without any depletion through erosion, degradation or overuse. The information and knowledge of soils of the state which could be gained through the study of their physical and chemical properties and their geographical distribution pattern, is an essential prerequisite for their proper utilization, management and conservation. It also helps in proper selection of crops and better land use.

When seen in detail at the village level, the soils of Rajasthan are complex, and highly variable, reflecting a variety of differing parent materials, physiographic land features, range of distribution of rainfall and its effects, etc. However, broadly, the soils can be put in five major groups, based on the basic fabric of soils i.e. soil texture which governs its many other properties. They are, (1) sandy soils or light soils, (2) sandy loam or light medium soils, (3) loam or medium soils, (4) clay loam to clay or heavy soils and (5) skeletal soils or shallow rocky and hilly soils.

The soils are generally evaluated for their production capacity through study of their ability to supply plant growth requirements in terms of water, nutrient and rooting media. The capacity to retain, as also to conduct soil moisture in profile, depends upon the soil texture, soil porosity and soil structure. For example, heavy soils due to their fine texture and porosity, provide effective capillary tubes for moisture movement. In loose sandy soils, due to big particles and ores, with fewer fine capillary pores, there is lesser soil moisture movement. Further, heavy soils are more difficult to work with implements than in light soils. During dry hot periods, however, heavy soils that get compacted, resist wind erosion but under heavy rainfall, due to their low infiltration rates they generate high surface run off and thus cause extensive soil erosion through water. On the other hand, the sandy or light soils that are loose and single grained are more prone to wind erosion and are often subject to sand drift, but due to their coarse and open texture, coarse pores and resultant high infiltration capacity, they are not susceptible to water erosion, even during heavy cloud bursts. Medium textured soils have moderate condition between the above extremes. As such, these different soils create different types of habitats for plant growth, and therefore, the crop choice and cropping patterns on such kind of soils greatly vary.

Soils are thus, variable in their soil-water-plant relationship, conservation needs and production potentials. To assess the potential of agricultural development and to plan proper conservative land use, soil survey is the basic requisite. The knowledge of soils gathered through such surveys is not only useful in finding out agriculturally potential areas but also those areas which have remained unnoticed under one or the other soil degradation process for a long period and are now considered as problematic areas. Further, the aeronomical and soil moisture conservation technologies, developed for crop production, are often more suitable, particularly for one or the other kinds of soils. Therefore, the distribution of such differing soils depicted through soil survey maps, is useful for easy and proper transfer of such technologies to suitable areas.

Soil resource is also a malleable environment moulded by the agriculturist in many ways e.g. production capacity per se can be improved through improvements of its fertility by use of organic manures and fertilizers. Its sustainability can also be maintained by its conservation against damages through erosion, preventing salinization, alkalinization, compaction depletion in nutrient level, etc. These are all known soil degradational processes which lessen the current or potential capability of soils to produce crops or biomass. Many technologies are available to check this and conserve soils for sustained productivity.

U.S.–India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative

On July 18, 2005, President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announced the U.S.–India Knowledge Initiative on Agricultural Education, Teaching, Research, Service, and Commercial Linkages (AKI). Recognizing the long history of cooperation in agriculture and the success of India’s Green Revolution launched 40 years ago with U.S. assistance, the AKI builds on this tradition of collaboration and addresses new challenges and opportunities of modern-day agriculture. Through public-private partnerships, it will help to facilitate technology transfer, trade, and investment and bolster agricultural research, education, and extension. In pursuing these objectives, a critical component is cooperation on development of effective policy, regulatory, and institutional frameworks. These, in turn, will contribute to increased prosperity for farmers and agricultural growth.

Since its inception, the AKI has made notable progress. Both countries created a board comprised of academia, government, and private sector representatives from the United States and India. The board agreed to a three-year work plan that supports the "Evergreen Revolution," which is based on environmentally sustainable, market-oriented agriculture. To jump start the Initiative, the United States secured funding of $8 million in fiscal year 2006, with a total of $24 million pledged through 2008.

See the AKI Fact Sheet for more information about the work plan.

Punjab – India’s bread-basket:

Punjab is a little big state of India: little because the state occupies only 1.5 per cent of the geographical area of the country and big because around two-third of the food grains procured annually in the country come from this state. Further over 95 per cent of the food grains that are moved interstate to feed deficit areas through the public distribution system are the stocks procured from this state.

Agriculture Scenario

An wealth can be generally divided into three namely: the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Agriculture is the most significant constituent of the primary sector together with forestry, animal husbandry, mining and fishing. The secondary sector includes all types of industries and tertiary sectors represents the services sector includes banking, insurance, trade, and other service. The Primary sector is the backbone of the wealth and economic development of the most of the nations of the world. If we look at the history of the economic development of the most of the present developed nations or those, which have embarked on the development path, it is the development of the agriculture that has laid the base of the development of the other sectors of their economies.