Despite growing demands for food production because of an increasing population, in South Asia there are vast areas of land left fallow.

When there is insufficient irrigation for year-round cropping, lands are left fallow after the cultivation of rainfed rice, and even after irrigated

rice. After the rice harvest there is often adequate stored soil moisture, along with any subsequent rainfall, to support a following crop, at

least one of short duration. Legume yields are often poor and, as a result large areas with the potential for cultivating a post-rice crop are

left fallow. The main reasons for this are the suite of agronomic difficulties in establishing and growing a crop after rice, where a hard

plough-pan is deliberately created to retain water for rice culture. However, there are now proven technologies available (e.g., short-

duration legume varieties, seed treatments, mechanization) that would make it feasible and profitable to increase the area of land to grow

post-rice crops. Successful demonstration and extension of these technologies would open the way for greater income generation by the

economically disadvantaged rice cultivators of South Asia, who presently have few options for enterprise diversification. Mapping post-rice

fallows and rabi fallows using remote sensing imagery will help identify areas for demonstration and dissemination of this technology

which are potential areas.

Cropping pattern changes Land use change dynamics

1. Land use changes are a regular phenomenon due to agro-ecological, socio-economic and policy decisions.

Some changes are so significant that they make a large difference in the agro-economic scenario of the

place, specifically when water availability affects critically the decision making of the small holder farmers.

Chickpea expansion in some districts of Andhra Pradesh is a good example of such change. Chickpea

growing areas expanded in these districts gradually replacing another crop since there was a good

economic gain in growing it. Less farm operations and mechanization also promoted this crop.

2. Remotely sensed imagery can be effectively used to monitor cropland changes and identify the niches for

present changes in cropping pattern and its impact.

Land use / land cover

Groundnut / sorghum / fallows

Maize / mixed crops

Cotton-chilli

Orchards / mixed crops

Rice-mixed crops

Other LULC

Chickpea

2000-01 2012-13

RS-GIS unit, RDS

Tracking of crop expansion / yield estimations and impact

Andhra Pradesh