ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on options for increasing farm productivity in a sustainable way as part of a Smart Village development strategy. It discusses conventional and organic approaches from different aspects of agriculture to determine methods that come closest to achieving sustainable intensification. The chapter looks at crop management, discussing options for managing soil moisture and nutrient content, and pest management, both during the growth cycle and post-harvest storage. Plants are vulnerable to attack from various forms of invasive pests, including other plants, insects that eat crops prior to harvest or during post-harvest storage, and fungi that make plants inedible. The chapter looks at issues relating to livestock management including feed, manure management and disease prevention. It discusses options for best practice agriculture in Smart Villages. Modern agriculture mainly consists of a “monoculture” approach, where the same crop is grown on the same plot of land, season after season.
