Finding a Suitable Niche for Cultivating Cactus Pear ( Opuntia ficus-indica ) as an Integrated Crop in Resilient Dryland Agroecosystems of India

Prasenjit Acharya, Chandrashekhar Biradar, Mounir Louhaichi, Surajit Ghosh, Sawsan Hassan, Hloniphani Moyo and Ashutosh Sarker
Additional contact information
Prasenjit Acharya: Geoinformatics Unit, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), 2 Port Said, Victoria Square Ismail El-Shaaer Building Maadi, Cairo 11140, Egypt
Chandrashekhar Biradar: Geoinformatics Unit, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), 2 Port Said, Victoria Square Ismail El-Shaaer Building Maadi, Cairo 11140, Egypt
Mounir Louhaichi: Resilient Agricultural Livelihood Systems Program, ICARDA, Amman 11195, Jordan
Surajit Ghosh: ICARDA South Asia & China Regional Program Office Block-C, NASC Complex DPS Marg, Pusa, New Delhi 110012, India
Sawsan Hassan: Resilient Agricultural Livelihood Systems Program, ICARDA, Amman 11195, Jordan
Hloniphani Moyo: Resilient Agricultural Livelihood Systems Program, ICARDA, Amman 11195, Jordan
Ashutosh Sarker: ICARDA South Asia & China Regional Program Office Block-C, NASC Complex DPS Marg, Pusa, New Delhi 110012, India

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 21, 1-21

Abstract: Climate change poses a significant threat to agroecosystems, especially in the dry areas, characterized by abrupt precipitation pattern and frequent drought events. Ideal crops, tolerant to these events, such as cactus, can perform well under such changing climatic conditions. This study spatially maps land suitability for cactus ( Opuntia ficus-indica ) cultivation in India using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP). Nine essential growth factors that include the climate and edaphic components were considered for the period 2000 to 2007. About 32% of the total geographic area of the country is in the high to moderate suitable category. Remaining 46% falls under the marginally suitable and 22% under the low to very low suitable category. The suitability analysis, based on the precipitation anomaly (2008–2017), suggests a high probability of cactus growth in the western and east-central part of India. The relationship with aridity index shows a decreasing rate of suitability with the increase of aridity in the western and east-central provinces (β~−1 to −2). We conclude that integrating cactus into dryland farming systems and rangelands under changing climate can be one plausible solution to build resilient agro-ecosystems that provide food and fodder while enhancing the availability of ecosystem services.

Keywords: cactus suitability; multi-criteria analysis; analytical hierarchical process; precipitation anomaly; Mann-Kendall test (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5897/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5897/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:21:p:5897-:d:279623

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().