Sustainable agriculture and fertilizer use

Sustainable agriculture must produce enough food and fibre to satisfy changing human needs while conserving natural resources, maintaining the quality of environment and ultimately lending to community and gender equity. lit the developed countries in Europe and to some extent in USA, chemical fertilizer has been held as a major culprit for environmental pollution, especially the nitrate enrichment of groundwater. However, evidence available also indicates that, animal slurry and septic cess pools largely contribute to nitrate enrichment of groundwater and also to environmental pollution with ammonia and nitrogen oxides (NO,). There are other sources of environmental pollution such as exhaust fumes from motor vehicles, flyash from thermal power plants and other industrial effluents. Developing countries such as India, reeling under population pressure with no additional cultivable land are forced to increase their fertilizer consumption, which as of today is much less than the actual crop needs. Nevertheless, we must learn lessons from the ill-effects of overuse of chemical fertilizer by developed countries and use it judiciously with a well-planned integrated plant nutrient supply system.