Assessment of agrobiodiversity in the intensive agriculture: a case study of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India

An assessment of agrobiodiversity is critical for making agriculture and food production sustainable, but this work has received less attention of researchers. We have developed an Agroecosystem Diversity Index to show the status, challenges and offer suggestions to conserve and enrich agrobiodiversity. The index captures the diversity of the agroecosystem at landscape, species and genetic levels; and indicates the threats to agrobiodiversity and the response of the society. The index is computed for the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India. Our findings show a moderate degree of agrobiodiversity in the region with an index of 0.39 and a range of 0.32 to 0.45 across the districts. The agroecosystem has become highly specialized with rice and wheat as the major crops. The increasing threat to agrobiodiversity and inadequate policy response to address the problem are the primary concerns. For sustainable management of agroecosystems in the region, it is necessary to introduce legumes to diversify the rice-wheat system, promote agroforestry to enhance landscape diversity and encourage optimum use of agrochemicals to enrich the soil microbiome. Natural resource depletion is a major concern, and conservation technologies and practices shall be useful in arresting the degradation process in the region.