Browsing by Author "Sukamal Sarkar"

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Carbon and Nitrogen Footprints Management for Environmental and Food Security
(Springer Singapore, 2020) Sukamal Sarkar; Akbar Hossain; Saikat Saha; Indranil Samui; Sayan Sau; Ram Swaroop Meena
To promote the advance food security for the increasing population, environmental security is important to the sustainable future. Agriculture is a major sector to interfere on the planet, and emitting a huge amount of the greenhouse gasses (GHGs) emission to the atmosphere, it is due to the imbalance and excessive use of chemical substances, electrical energy and high consumption of the fossil fuel. Various agricultural activities including ploughing, irrigation, crop cultivars, livestock rearing, application of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and associated equipment also emit a significant amount of GHGs. The Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGPs) of the South Asia (SA) are a food basket of the world population. It is due to harvesting of the number of diversified cropping systems/crops in a year in same land with higher crop productivity. Where the rice–wheat cropping system (RWCS) is covering ~26 M ha in the IGPs of SA, and it is solely the major contributor to anthropogenic GHGs productions, particularly methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emission, and volatilisation of ammonia (NH3). The excessive production of GHGs is directly linked to carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) footprints, which are the key element for balancing the many components in the nature directly and indirectly. Therefore C and N of various forms regulate the fauna and flora activities, soil and crop productivity, energy consumption, atmospheric gaseous concentration, etc. Among them, N2O is responsible for ozone depletion and global climate change and has a global warming possible to 265 times than that of carbon dioxide (CO2). To reduce the GHGs emissions, it is important to users of balanced chemical fertilisers particularly N-fertilisers, improvements of the operation efficiencies of farm machinery and changes in regional allocation the RWCS. The present study is concentrated on the aspect of C and N footprints in the farming systems, which are linked to the GHGs-emission through pre-, on-and post-farm activities. Several alleviation approaches concerning to the agricultural practices are also suggest a roadmap to the policymakers, land managers and researchers, and help to the modeling for footprints of C and N for environmental, food, nutritional and economics security under the changing climate. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Cost-Effective and Eco-Friendly Agricultural Technologies in Rice-Wheat Cropping Systems for Food and Environmental Security
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Akbar Hossain; Rajan Bhatt; Sukamal Sarkar; Manashi Barman; Debjyoti Majumder; Saikat Saha; Mst. Tanjina Islam; Sagar Maitra; Ram Swaroop Meena
Both rice and wheat in the “rice-wheat cropping systems” (RWCS) of South Asia and China feed more than 3.1 billion people. It is the most productive and vital agricultural systems worldwide to meet the food safety of the growing population.Although the RWCS have great concern for food security, however, one of the foremost complications in the systems is that soils are puddled with repeated tillage by the traditional way for transplanting rice seedlings which lead to alteration in soil physical and chemical properties. Besides these, repeated tillages for puddling create a hard plow pan layer at the root zone of the rice plant that creates poor infiltration and waterlogging for the next dry season crop particularly wheat. Farmers in the systems generally use excessive synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for getting higher yield for both rice and wheat. As a result, repeatedtillage and also imbalance application of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides increase the production cost as well as influence greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Since the systems have several hostile effects on the environment due to traditional farming, it is already confirmed that the systems are the key source of food production for more than 3.1 billion people in the countries of South and Southeast Asia. Therefore, it will not be a wise decision to replace the system from the regions. In the meantime, researchers have recommended numerous advanced technologies in the RWCS for sustainable rice and wheat production. The chapter discusses cost-effective and ecological-friendly technologies for RWCS of South Asia for food and environmental security. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Ecological Intensification for Sustainable Agriculture in South Asia
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Akbar Hossain; Sukamal Sarkar; Atikur Rahman; Rajan Bhatt; Sourav Garai; Saikat Saha; Mst. Tanjina Islam; Ram Swaroop Meena
In South Asian countries huge population pressure, foster urbanization and industrialization lead to dwindle the agro-ecological resources like land, water, agroforestry, human and climatic stability. Agricultural intensification has been accompanied by a set of innovations, collectively referred to as the Green Revolution, which has increased food production significantly. However, the intensification poses a major threat to the physical environment such as the loss of natural resources, genetic diversity, land degradation and non-judicious application of water and nutrient. Recent evidence recommends that ecological intensification (EI) of distinctive agriculture particularly in rice-based cropping systems of South Asia can preserve the food production in addition with environmental welfares. Since EI of sustainable agriculture could organize the precise constituents of biodiversity and can be used to either balance synthetic-input as well as expand the productivity without adverse effect on agricultural production. Besides, it is also reported that the performance of organic and agro-ecological farming system is much better in case of ecosystem services relevant to climate change, carbon sequestration from a soil depth of 30 cm and other parameters like soil water holding capacity, etc. Therefore, scientists and policymakers consequently and progressively have emphasized the welfares of ecological-intensifying agriculture to a sociable way towards food, nutritional, environmental and livelihood security by assisting biodiversity and enhance the ecosystem services. This chapter highlights the available agro-ecological resources for improving crop productivity to obtain the goal of sustainable agricultural intensification without negotiating the agricultural outputs. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Emerging concern of nano-pollution in agro-ecosystem: Flip side of nanotechnology
(Elsevier Masson s.r.l., 2024) Debojyoti Moulick; Arnab Majumdar; Abir Choudhury; Anupam Das; Bhaben Chowardhara; Binaya Kumar Pattnaik; Goutam Kumar Dash; Kanu Murmu; Karma Landup Bhutia; Munish Kumar Upadhyay; Poonam Yadav; Pradeep Kumar Dubey; Ratul Nath; Sidhu Murmu; Soujanya Jana; Sukamal Sarkar; Sourav Garai; Dibakar Ghosh; Mousumi Mondal; Subhas Chandra Santra; Shuvasish Choudhury; Koushik Brahmachari; Akbar Hossain
Nanomaterials (NMs) have proven to be a game-changer in agriculture, showcasing their potential to boost plant growth and safeguarding crops. The agricultural sector has widely adopted NMs, benefiting from their small size, high surface area, and optical properties to augment crop productivity and provide protection against various stressors. This is attributed to their unique characteristics, contributing to their widespread use in agriculture. Human exposure from various components of agro-environmental sectors (soil, crops) NMs residues are likely to upsurge with exposure paths may stimulates bioaccumulation in food chain. With the aim to achieve sustainability, nanotechnology (NTs) do exhibit its potentials in various domains of agriculture also have its flip side too. In this review article we have opted a fusion approach using bibliometric based analysis of global research trend followed by a holistic assessment of pros and cons i.e. toxicological aspect too. Moreover, we have also tried to analyse the current scenario of policy associated with the application of NMs in agro-environment. © 2024 Elsevier Masson SAS
Natural Resources Intensification and Footprints Management for Sustainable Food System
(Springer Singapore, 2020) Akbar Hossain; Sukamal Sarkar; Manashi Barman; Sourav Garai; Rajan Bhatt; Mst. Tanjina Islam; Ram Swaroop Meena
The global population are approaching to 10 billion by the year 2050, therefore to encounter the food security of the increasing population it has been anticipated that production of food must be improved by 70%. Despite more food production and increasing the poverty level are the foremost difficulties to fulfil the nutrition and food demand for the emerging world. At the same time, climate change creates a great barrier to improve agricultural productivity. It has been recognized and proved that traditional agricultural practices do not reduce the rural poverty and degradation of the ecosystem. Food production systems are not always environmentally friendly and cost-benefit depends on imbalanced use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Therefore, it is indispensable to expand environmentally friendly technologies for sustaining crop yield. Earlier evidence proved that under the future changing climate, the food demand for the growing people across the globe can be only attained through the management of agroecology; since it emphasizes on resource conservation farming practices, reworking small farm enterprises, the participation of more farmers, traditional knowledge of the farming community, improved plant genetic multiplicity, and avoid to use of imbalanced synthetic pesticides and manures. The chapter focuses on the sustainable agroecological based crop production systems without hindering the agroecological environment for the nourishment of the growing population particularly in emerging nations of South Asia under changing climate. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Selenium – An environmentally friendly micronutrient in agroecosystem in the modern era: An overview of 50-year findings
(Academic Press, 2024) Debojyoti Moulick; Arkabanee Mukherjee; Anupam Das; Anirban Roy; Arnab Majumdar; Anannya Dhar; Binaya Kumar Pattanaik; Bhaben Chowardhara; Dibakar Ghosh; Munish Kumar Upadhyay; Poonam Yadav; Swati Hazra; Sukamal Sarkar; Subrata Mahanta; S.C. Santra; Shuvasish Choudhury; Sagar Maitra; Udit Nandan Mishra; Karma L. Bhutia; Milan Skalicky; Oliver Obročník; Viliam Bárek; Marian Brestic; Akbar Hossain
Agricultural productivity is constantly being forced to maintain yield stability to feed the enormously growing world population. However, shrinking arable and nutrient-deprived soil and abiotic and biotic stressor (s) in different magnitudes put additional challenges to achieving global food security. Though well-defined, the concept of macro, micronutrients, and beneficial elements is from a plant nutritional perspective. Among various micronutrients, selenium (Se) is essential in small amounts for the life cycle of organisms, including crops. Selenium has the potential to improve soil health, leading to the improvement of productivity and crop quality. However, Se possesses an immense encouraging phenomenon when supplied within the threshold limit, also having wide variations. The supplementation of Se has exhibited promising outcomes in lessening biotic and abiotic stress in various crops. Besides, bulk form, nano-Se, and biogenic-Se also revealed some merits and limitations. Literature suggests that the possibilities of biogenic-Se in stress alleviation and fortifying foods are encouraging. In this article, apart from adopting a combination of a conventional extensive review of the literature and bibliometric analysis, the authors have assessed the journey of Se in the “soil to spoon” perspective in a diverse agroecosystem to highlight the research gap area. There is no doubt that the time has come to seriously consider the tag of beneficial elements associated with Se, especially in the drastic global climate change era. © 2023 The Authors
Sustainable water management in rice cultivation reduces arsenic contamination, increases productivity, microbial molecular response, and profitability
(Elsevier B.V., 2024) Arnab Majumdar; Munish Kumar Upadhyay; Biswajit Giri; Poonam Yadav; Debojyoti Moulick; Sukamal Sarkar; Barun Kumar Thakur; Kashinath Sahu; Ashish Kumar Srivastava; Martin Buck; Mark Tibbett; Manoj Kumar Jaiswal; Tarit Roychowdhury
Arsenic (As) and silicon (Si) are two structurally competitive natural elements where Si minimises As accumulation in rice plants, and based on this two-year field trial, the study proposes adopting alternating wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation as a sustainable water management strategy allowing greater Si availability. This field-based project is the first report on AWD's impact on As-Si distribution in fluvio-alluvial soils of the entire Ganga valley (24 study sites, six divisions), seasonal variance (pre-monsoon and monsoon), rice plant anatomy and productivity, soil microbial diversity, microbial gene ontology profiling and associated metabolic pathways. Under AWD to flooded and pre-monsoon to monsoon cultivations, respectively, greater Si availability was achieved and As-bioavailability was reduced by 8.7 ± 0.01–9.2 ± 0.02% and 25.7 ± 0.09–26.1 ± 0.01%. In the pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons, the physiological betterment of rice plants led to the high rice grain yield under AWD improved by 8.4 ± 0.07% and 10.0 ± 0.07%, proving the economic profitability. Compared to waterlogging, AWD evidences as an optimal soil condition for supporting soil microbial communities in rice fields, allowing diverse metabolic activities, including As-resistance, and active expression of As-responsive genes and gene products. Greater expressions of gene ontological terms and complex biochemical networking related to As metabolism under AWD proved better cellular, genetic and environmental responsiveness in microbial communities. Finally, by implementing AWD, groundwater usage can be reduced, lowering the cost of pumping and field management and generating an economic profit for farmers. These combined assessments prove the acceptability of AWD for the establishment of multiple sustainable development goals (SDGs). © 2024 Elsevier B.V.