Crop Production Challenges and Ways to Overcome Them

Crop production challenges in Iran are: preserving natural resources, climate change and environmental sustainability. A nation who could not be able to save his environment including soil erosion, forests, climate change and increasing consumption of natural resources, would not be survived. Such nations, like Polynesians and Mayan people are cited in this article. Ignoring soil erosion through agricultural activities has been the cause of plaguing ancient civilizations, too. Increasing cultivated area without specific plans, deforestation, overgrazing, overusing of fertilizers, insecticides, and fossil fuels cause environmental contaminations, increase greenhouse gases, increasing air temperature which altogether result in change in precipitation pattern, incidence of droughts, floods, dust storms, and water shortage in the area. Confrontation of these challenges are: population control, sustainable consumption pattern, reducing the use of insecticides and fertilizers, range and forests conservation as carbon sequestering sources, suitable cultivation methods like no-tillage, replacing fossil energy by renewable energy, making logical balance between development and ecological strength of environment, breeding agronomic and horticultural cultivars resistant to heat, drought, pests and diseases, and using new agricultural management policies. Environmental factors affecting crop yields are: water, land, soil, soil nutrition, energy, food, biodiversity, solid waste recycling, management and climate change. In addition, drought, temperature, atmosphere CO2 and ozon, biotic and abiotic stresses affect crop production, too. The food needs of Iran for strategic crops such as wheat, rice, sugar, fat, barley, corn, and pulses for now and for 2025 and 2050, with respect to population growth, have been estimated. To meet the food needs of growing population in Iran, increasing cultivated areas should not be considered . Instead, genetics and breeding approaches to develop new cultivars and also production and management techniques should be taken into account. Management approaches such as efficient water use, new cultivation techniques, efficient use of fertilizers, precision seed planters, integrated pest management (IPM) and new cropping information technology have been discussed in this article. Our planet earth is sustainable in terms of water and sunshine. Natural resources and environment are the main background for agricultural activities and their safeguarding is the main factor for agricultural production in any habitat