OPTIMAL CROP PLANNING UTILISING MULTI RESOURCES FOR BADANALA IRRIGATION PROJECT

Abstract

A reasonably large number of studies on various aspects of irrigation/agricultural planning including optimal crop planning have been carried out in the past using system analysis techniques. However, the systematic studies towards operation research based integrated planning for crop production and bio-waste utilisation for sustainable ecological agriculture in a command area and its impact on habitat environment wit-hin the command are not available in literature in adequate numbers. The country is, presently, facing both the gignatic problem of population explosion as well as of resource crunch. The import bills of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, petroleum products as well as compelled subsides to farmers on various agricultural inputs like fertilizers, p 4?cd4e, electricity and diesel-these all together are exerting pressure on the exchequer, which, in turn, is badly affecting the health of the economy. Therefore, to meet the urgent demand for increasing agricultural production to feed the growing population and also improving the overall status of our agro_ based economy, it is very much essential to tape and optimally utilise all the conventional and non-conventional resources including organic wastes (biomass), which have potentiality to be utilised to supplement and augment economic and ecologically compatible product-ion of food, fodder, fuel and fertlizer. As such a sincre effort is required to be made for intergrated planning and management of land, water and all sorts of locally available resources including biomass to obtain maximum production at minimum cultivation cost with an eye on sustainability issues related to environment in general and Iv agricultural production in particular. Planning and management of agriculture and allied activities based on above considerations will not only accelerate the pace for providing food security to the millions but also ensure environmental security, i.e., healthy, hygenic and safe agro-habitat environment. Therefore, the specific decision problem under consideration is to maximize the net benefits from irrigation under given limitations and also reduce the cost of cultivation by replacing the cost of costly and external inputelike chemical fertilizers and pesticides by -'` . cheaper and locally obtainable organic manure called bio-fertilizer without affecting the yield by'\ recycling the bio degradable wastes which are not only available in plenty in the command area but also pose environmental threat if disposed off unsafely. Command area of Badanala irrigation project (Orissa) has been taken up for this study. As such the present study deals with two interlinked aspects of irrigation/agriculture and envrionmental planning -(i) arriving at a most suitable and practicable optimal crop plan for the project area and (ii) exploring the viability options for utilising all sorts of biowastes available in the command area for production of cheaper and locally available bio-fertilizer and bio-energy for sustainable ecological agriculture and keeping the habitat environment. safe. Reservoir Design Model (Max Znb) as a L.P. Model was used for examining the optimality of designed crop plan given in the project report of Badanala irrigation project as well as for suggesting a most suitable optimal crop plan for the project area under various limitations and also efforts were made to extend V. the model to incorporate the biomass utilisation aspects although deeper investigation in this particular area was not carried out due to time constraints. Lastly, on the basis of experience of applying the above model, some useful conclusions have been drawn and also scope for future work in this field has been suggested. V1