Sustainable Agriculture

YRA working towards the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment of continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations. Our focus on land, water, and plant resources, and is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.

YRA helps communities develop forms of food production that are economically viable, ecologically sound, socially just and supportive of rural culture. Through locally-determined agricultural experimentation, small&marginal farmers can learn low-cost resource conservation techniques to preserve biodiversity, regenerate soil fertility, manage water and increase their production while reducing dependence on externally purchased inputs.

YRA has worked out **Package of Practices** under "**Sustainable Agriculture**". A booklet on these practices has been published. New amendments also are continuously made in those practices. Following are the main activities as practices promoted by YRA:

Live fencing/ Wind wall: To protect standing crops from wind and various diseases, hit and dust etc these walls act as protector.
Crop planning: crops planning according to soil health, crop rotation, mix cropping, inter cropping, IPM etc is important aspect in the sustainable agriculture that is never practiced by these farmers.
Soil Health Management: Soil testing is done through government laboratories but the report reach to farmer after sowing time. On top of it the farmers cannot read the report and understand what they have to do. Under this project timely soil testing will be done and each farmer will be guided to apply various inputs as per report. This also will help farmers to plan crop in that particular plot.
Seed: Selection of local/ climate resilient seed and seed treatment is important that will be promoted among the farmers.
Crop Nutrition: According to the soil status, growth of crop organic inputs are recommended to maintain crop nutrition.
Crop Protection: To protect the crops from various diseases and pest attacks certain techniques have been developed those will be promoted under the project.
Crop harvesting: Timely harvesting of any crop is economical. Even methods adopted for harvesting, without damaging the crop are important.
Post Harvesting: Management, storage, simple processing are some of the practices necessary for maintaining quality and fetching more prices. Collective storage and treatment helps a lot.
Water Budgeting (WB): Water Budgeting (WB) approach will be introduced towards ensuring optimum, equitable and most efficient use of water. This involves gaining an understanding of water availability, a community’s existing needs and requirements of water, crop planning based on water availability, optimizing irrigation, equitable sharing of water, and considered decisions on ground water withdrawals.