Priyadarshini Agnihotri

Increasing land degradation is posing a great threat to the perspectives of improving food and fodder production. Salinity stress is limiting agricultural crop productivity.  One of the most serious forms of land degradation is secondary salinity/sodicity (i.e. Salinity developed due to saline water irrigation), which is prevalent in arid and semiarid regions of world. The production capacity of such lands is inhospitable because of their poor physical and chemical properties, altered ecosystem, and disturbed nutrient cycling resulted from land overuse and continual addition of chemicals. Such problems are now the major determinants of global crop productivity and consequently reclamation of such soil resources is the most urgent requirement for world food production and sustainable development. However growing halophytes has been tried to reclaim such land.

Increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions are cause of global concern. The Kyoto Protocol shares the ultimate objective of the Convention to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of Green House Gases at a level that will prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. . Current biomass use,although not sustainable in some cases, replaces fossil fuel consumption and results in avoided CO2 emissions, representing about 2.7 to 8.8 % of 1998 anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The global biomass energy potential is large, estimated at about 104 EJ/a. hence, biomass has the potential to avoid significant fossil fuel consumption, potentially between 17 and 36 % of the current level and CO2 emissions potentially between 12 and 44 % of the 1998 level. There is significant scope then to integrate biomass energy with agriculture, forestry and climate change policies. Improved agronomic practices of well managed biomass plantations will also provide a basis for environmental improvement by helping to stabilize certain soils, avoiding desertification which is already occurring rapidly in tropical countries.