ABSTRACT
176A study was conducted in the rainfed areas of Deshapran block, Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal under coastal agro-eco sub-region 18.5 constrained by various soil and water related problems besides climatic hazards. Soil resource inventory was conducted at 1:10,000 scale using latest technologies of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS), to identify the problems and potentials of the soils and to suggest management practices to develop appropriate and sustainable production systems that deal with the problems of food security and livelihood improvement of the resource- poor farmers. The farming community is mostly poor. Marginal and landless farmers are poorer and have no livelihood security. Soils were imperfect to poorly drained, neutral to slightly alkaline in reaction with medium to low in organic carbon (OC), low to medium in available N, low in available P and low to high in available K. Salinity in dry season and waterlogging during wet season restricts the crop choices and therefore it is a major impediment to enhance the agricultural productivity in the region. The area is mostly mono-cropped, growing rainfed traditional rice with poor yields during the monsoon (kharif) season. The study reveals that besides rice-fallow/rice-rice cropping sequences, paddy-vegetables cropping sequence can be introduced in the block with proper soil and water conservation measures to improve the food and livelihood security.
