ABSTRACT
Cropping system is a land-use unit comprising soils, crop, weed, pathogen and insect subsystems that transform solar energy, water nutrients, labour and other inputs into food, feed, fuel and fibre. Historically, cropping systems have been designed to maximise yield, but modern agriculture is increasingly concerned with promoting environmental sustainability in cropping systems. The concept of sustainable agriculture has come up because yield from modem farming technique reaching a plateau and the environmental poblems due to excessive use of chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides in food chain. Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned and allowed to revert to their natural vegetation while the cultivator moves on to another plot. After the green revolution was launched in India, substantial increase in the production of food grains was achieved through the use of improved crop varieties and higher levels of inputs of fertilizers and plant protection chemicals.
