(Premium) Gist of Kurukshetra Magazine: September 2013

Premium - Gist of Kurukshetra Magazine: September 2013

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY IN AGRICULTURE

Agriculture has to match the pace of the population growth to counter hunger and poverty in the world particularly in the developing countries. Cereals are the dominant part of our food security and world cereal output in 2012 was 2.309 billion tones. It is estimated that the world population will be 9.1 billion persons by 2050, up from the current population of 7 billion. More importantly, income growth will increase the quantity and change the composition of agricultural commodity demand. Demand for energy will also compete with the food security as parts of our agricultural commodities are going for the production of bio-fuels which will also continue to grow. Thus, significant increases in production of all major crops, livestock and fisheries will be required. According to the estimates of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAD), agricultural production would need to grow globally by 70 per cent by 2050 and more specifically by almost 100 per cent in developing countries, to feed the growing population alone. This excludes additional demand for crops as feedstock and the demand for bio-fuel sector.

Today, agriculture is in serious constraint due to the challenge of hunger, malnutrition, poverty and climate change. Some recent estimates suggest that total factor productivity (TFPJ, the most comprehensive measure of productivity reflecting the efficiency to turn all inputs into outputs, grew at an average rate of around 2 per cent per year since 2000 across major world regions. The most popular indicator of land productivity is crop yield. This is a worrying factor as the average global rates of growth in yield of most of the major cereals are declining. Since the 1980s, growth in wheat and rice yields fell from 2.5-3 to around 1 per cent. Maize yields showed growth of slightly less than 2 per cent over the last decade. This is the major concern due to the lack of technology transfer. The gap between farmers’ yields and technical potential yields reflects the largely suboptimal use of inputs and insufficient adoption of most productive technology. According to FAD, this yield gap was approximately 11 per cent in East Asia and with unequal access to resources and inputs could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5-4 per cent which can lead to a reduction of 12-17 per cent in the number of undernourished globally.

Indian Scenario

Sustainable agriculture growth is important to check the hunger and poverty in the vulnerable population of the country as for 1 per cent growth in agriculture sector there would be a 2-3 per cent reduction in poverty. India’s population is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2025, making food security most important social issue and food production will have to be increased considerably, to meet needs of growing population. The farm
sector achieved 3.6 per cent growth during the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-12) which was much higher than growth of 2.5 and 2.4 per cent during 9th and 10th Plans. Food grains production in India has shown remarkable improvement in recent years. The production of food grains in 2011-12 was at a record high of 259.32 million tones.

While focusing on increasing productivity in agriculture, innovative technologies should be infused to lower production costs, conserve biodiversity, more efficient use of external inputs for more sustainable agriculture and
environment, increase stability of production to lessen suffering during droughts due to abiotic and biotic stresses. Indian agriculture has all capabilities in the form of technology and management to accelerate the growth.

The Planning Commission has targeted an annual growth rate of 4 per cent for the agriculture sector in the Twelfth Five-year Plan. This is evident from the statistics as the production of food grains has increased by 4 times, horticultural crops by 6 times, fish by 9 times (marine 5 times and inland 17 times), milk 6 times and eggs 27 times since 1950-51. Green Revolution is our biggest success which resulted in an increase in food production from 800 million tonnes to more than 2.2 billion tonnes between 1961 and 2000. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with 99 institutes, 65 Agricultural Universities and 631 Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) spread across the country constitutes one of the largest national agricultural research systems in the world. But now, there is need for another green revolution by tapping the unexplored potential of vast tract of the country with the augmentation of irrigation and technology.

Our agriculture is still technology deficit as far as world agriculture is concerned. Yields per hectare of foodgrains, fruits and vegetables in our country are far below global averages, Our rice yields are one-third of China’s, and about half of Vietnam’s and Indonesia’s. Even India’s most productive states lag global averages. For example, Punjab’s yield of rice in 2010 was 3.8 tonnes per hectare against the global average of 4.3 tonnes. The average yield for apples in India (J&K) is about 11 tonnes per acre compared to the US, New Zealand, Israel or China, where yields range 30-70 tonnes per acre. The available data show that the productivity of kharif sorghum can be increased 3 to 4 times, rabi sorghum 1.4 to 2.3 times and bajra 1.8 to 2.3 times from their current level of productivity. Similarly, the productivity of pulses and oilseeds can be increased 2.3 to 2.5 times, through attention to seeds, soil health, pest management, crop life saving irrigation and postharvest technology. Supplemental irrigation based on rain water harvesting will help to increase yields further. A second area needing immediate attention and action’ relates to improving the productivity of wheat, rice, pulses and oilseeds in the Indo-Gangetic lairts and eastern India, particularly in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. According to a report of Chambers of Indian Industries (CII) and McKinsey, the country’s agricultural output by 2030 could reach Rs 29.28 lakh crore level and food exports could jump to over Rs 7 lakh crore. Consequently, processing could grow from Rs 1.1 lakh crore to Rs 5.65 lakh crore by 2030 while India’s food exports could grow from Rs 1.4 lakh crore to Rs 7.72 lakh crore by 2030. The new Food and Agriculture Integrated Development Action (FAI DA) report focuses on mango, banana, potato, soyabean and poultry which represent categories that are likely to drive the next wave of growth.

Need for Climate Change Resilient Technology

Climate change is the biggest threat to sustainable agriculture in the world. Global agriculture will need to adapt to climate change. There is growing evidence that climate change has had negative effects on agriculture and
particularly in developing countries. Agriculture (including deforestation) accounts for about onethird of greenhouse gas emissions; for this reason, it contributes significantly to climate change mitigation. Agriculture is the largest water user worldwide, representing about 70 per cent of total withdrawal. Agriculture is also a major source of water pollution from nutrients, pesticides, soils and other contaminants, leading to significant social, economic and environmental costs. It also damages the wider environment through the emission of greenhouse gasses. In some intensive farming systems, up to 50 per cent of available inorganic and organic nutrient inputs are not always utilized by crops or pastures, leading to significant pollution from nutrient run-off. The scenario is just opposite in the case of large parts of the developing world, where crop farming leads to a net extraction of nutrients from the soil.

While crops can be adapted to changing environments, the need to reduce emissions will increasingly challenge conventional, resourceintensive agricultural systems. Productivity growth needs to increase to keep up with demand growth, but also to increase resilience of the sector to supply shocks, whether due to climate change or due to resource limits more generally. Agriculture planning in future has to take into consideration the total scenarios of land, water and energy keeping in view the demand of food and other agricultural commodities. Indian Council of Agricultural Research has taken various initiatives to mitigate the impact of climate change such as National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) and development of abiotic stress tolerant crops. During 2011-12, more than 15000 germplasm of wheat and 2000 germplasm lines of other crops like rice, maize, pulses were screened for drought, heat and submergence tolerance which are the major climatic stresses and more than 50 promising lines were identified in different crops which will be used, for breeding purposes during next year. Drought and flood coping technologies were demonstrated on farmers’ fields for adoption in large number of villages for upscaling. For agriculture to respond to future challenges, innovation will not only need to improve the efficiency with which inputs are turned into outputs, but also conserve scarce natural resources and reduce waste.

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