Cropping in Madhya Pradesh, Central India, experiences an overall nutrient deficit of about 1 Mt of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) annually. In addition to increasing the supply of inorganic fertilisers, the balance between inputs and losses must also be met by indigenous organic sources such as farmyard manure. Although large amounts of animal dung are produced in India, less than 50% of this is currently used to produce farmyard manure. With the objective of increasing manure production and manure nutrient use in cropping, we surveyed 100 farmers from 4 randomly selected villages in Madhya Pradesh to: record perceptions and attitudes towards farmyard manure use for crop production; estimate nutrient balances; and test fields for concentrations of soil organic carbon (C), nitrogen, and available nutrients.

All farmers’ field soils were low in organic C and available N, although available P, zinc and iron occurred in low to medium concentrations. However, the majority of farmers under-fertilised their crops, resulting in a negative nutrient balance; 0.9 Mt of NPK in 1997–98, which is predicted to increase to 1.8 Mt by 2020 over a 19 × 10⁶ ha cropped area in Madhya Pradesh. All of the farmers surveyed believed that added farmyard manure improved their soil productivity and the majority also believed that farmyard manure increased crop yields; favourably affecting soil physical conditions and water-holding capacity. However, most farmers were not aware of the contribution of farmyard manure to plant nutrients.

The major constraint listed by all the surveyed farmers was the insufficient quantity of farmyard manure available for field application. Its production was restricted by the competitive use of about 50% of cattle dung as a domestic fuel. The marginal farmers (<0.9 ha farm size) expressed their unwillingness to shift to other fuel sources, presumably due to limited cash flow from the farm, however 58–85% of farmers with larger holdings (0.9–25 ha) were receptive to using alternative fuel sources such as liquid petroleum gas. Although the nutrient content of farmyard manure was found to be relatively low (about 7.6 kg N/t dry farmyard manure), use of all animal dung for manure should be encouraged by introducing liquid petroleum gas supply in villages. This would help to reverse the negative nutrient balance in Madhya Pradesh soils via an integrated nutrient management approach (utilisation of all nutrient sources and optimisation of crop nutrient requirements).