Agriculture has not only been the means of subsistence for human being but also fuelling a number of ecosystems running parallel in the biological world. It has been and shall be relevant to the very existence of mankind on this planet ever. More so, its concernment is going to increase in the times to come.

Technological backstopping has been the major factor since the last 100 years that has transformed agriculture to its present shape. Regular increase in agricultural production has been recorded despite reduction in the area of harvested croplands and substantial decrease in agricultural labour force. We all have witnessed changes in production patterns which have so far been tremendous internationally. While global population more than doubled from 2.6 billion in 1950 to 5.9 billion in 1998, grain production per person has increased by about 12 per cent. Much of this is accredited to the technological improvements and innovations in agriculture. Notwithstanding all these accomplishments, agriculture has to meet a number of challenges in today’s world. Projected population growth in the future coupled with the intrinsic fear of feeding this population, issues and novel challenges arising from climate change including reduction of greenhouse gas emission from agriculture, changing scenario of global economy with emerging stakeholders and key role players and growing concerns for conservation of resources vital to agriculture and ecology including water, energy and even land are some of these challenges which agriculture has to cope up with in the coming times.

As stated earlier, innovations and technological improvement have played the key role in bringing agriculture up to the current stage and these are the factors that are going to determine the shape of agriculture of the future in terms of the challenges indicated above. These factors are going to play a critical role in making agriculture more competitive and sustainable in times to come. Innovations are the processes which are aimed to implement something new in a given context and are socially appropriate and benefitting to the productive or organizational stakeholders. They arise from a given socioeconomic situation and attain the shape appropriate to address the present and determine the future of that situation. They are further formulated to the status of a ‘technology’ that could efficiently be used to solve some problem or at least help to solve it.

The San Jose Declaration of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas (2011) has expressed its agreement on the point that agricultural innovation is a catalyst for growth and positive change, and further, to foster innovation it is vital to increase and intensify production and productivity, improve incomes, reduce poverty and inequality, decrease the environmental impacts of the agrifood sector, respond to natural disasters, increase access to new technologies. Adapt to climate change and, consequently, achieve food security and a better quality of life for all the inhabitants. [1]

The United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) procured commitments from the governments as ‘the capacity for technological innovation needs to be greatly enhanced in developing countries and there is an urgent need for the international community to facilitate the availability of environmentally sound technologies and corresponding know-how by promoting the development and dissemination of appropriate, affordable and sustainable technology, and the transfer of such technologies on mutually agreed terms, in order to strengthen national innovation and research and development capacity. [2]

Innovative Techniques in Agriculture (ITAG) is aimed to publish research papers of high quality with novelty and applicability to the current scientific scenario. It publishes research papers on every topic that has some concern to agriculture and technology pertinent to it. The current issue of the journal is going to add to the scientific information and knowledge base which have the potential to contribute significantly in transforming the present form of agriculture to that of the future with all the capabilities of meeting the challenges at the point of time.

I am thankful to the authors who have very meticulously formulated their research work and have conducted them successfully to reach newer conclusions and am equally beholden to the reviewers who have shaped the journal to its present form. I wish all the best to our readers who are the ultimate clientele of this entire effort and will be grateful for their valuable suggestions which help us make further improvement in our attempts to serve them better.
(Jai P Rai)