Fruit based diversified cropping system: an alternative approach for nutritional and economic security

Diversity of fruit crops available in the country has proved beyond doubt its potentiality for gainful diversi fication. Fruit based diversified cropping system is now considered to be the most ideal strategy to provide, food, nutrition and income security to the people particularly in view of continuous increasing population and decreasing per capita land availability which would be merely 0.68 ha by 2020. In addition to contacting land resources, national problems like environmental degradation, climate change, thermal stress, water scarcity, groundwater contamination and entry of toxic substances into the food chain are some of the other challenges for the fruit industry. Under such situation, integration of annual crops with fruit trees seems to be a viable option as it would yield multiple outputs, ensure production and income generation in a sustainable manner. Natural resources (land, solar radiation, water, soil) as well as socio economic inputs (labour, credit, power, market infrastructure) could be efficiently utilised increasing the resilience of the system over time. Integrating annual/seasonal crops with perennial fruit trees/plantation crops approach has been widely recognized by native people, obviously to achieve sustainable production ensuring ecololgical stability by growing several species together. In the recent past, several innovations and new initiatives have been made both in research and development for improving production and productivity through diversification. This paper deals with the significant achievements made in this regard in terms of different fruit based cropping system which have the potential in different agro-climatic regions of the country, particularly the fragile ecosystems of the country.