The article highlight the need for more emphasis on agricultural R&D as a solution to the woes of the farmers.

India needs low-input high-output agriculture

• Amid farmers protest against farm acts, the current debates focus mainly on MSP, reducing farmers’ debt liabilities, reducing post-harvest losses, cash transfers and marketing reforms.
• India with entrenched poverty requires low-input, high-output agriculture; low input in terms of both natural resources and monetary inputs.
• Very little attention is being given to reducing the natural resource inputs — most critical being water —and agricultural R&D.
• This cannot be achieved without science and technology.

Following are the areas in which Indian agriculture needs R&D to reduce agriculture inputs

1) Water usage for agriculture

• India receives around 4,000 billion cubic meters (bcm) of rainfall, but a large part of it falls in the east.
• Moreover, most of the rain is received within 100 hours of torrential downpour, making water storage and irrigation critical for agriculture.
• India has one of the highest water usages for agriculture in the world — of the total 761 bcm withdrawals of water, 90.5 per cent goes into agriculture.
• In comparison, China uses 385.2 bcm (64.4 per cent) out of the total withdrawals of 598.1 bcm for agriculture.
• China’s per-unit land productivity in terms of crop production is almost two to three times more.
• The total estimated groundwater depletion in India is in the range of 122-199 bcm .
• The depletion is highest in Punjab, Haryana, and western UP.

2) Increasing the yields of coarse-grain crops and oilseed crops

• Years of intense research on yield increase and yield protection by breeding varieties and hybrids resistant to pests and pathogens have made wheat, rice and maize stable high yielders.
• Environmentalists suggest replacing rice with coarse grain crops — millets, sorghum etc.
• However, the yields of these crops are not comparable to those of wheat and rice even when protective irrigation is available.
• These crops have a serious R&D deficit leading to low yield potential as well as losses to pests and pathogens.
• This leaves us with pulses and oilseeds.
• In the 2017-18 fiscal year, India imported around Rs 76,000 crore worth of edible oils.
• Three oilseed crops (mustard, soybean, and groundnut) are already grown very extensively.
• Soybean and groundnut are legume crops and fix their nitrogen.
• All three crops not only provide edible oils but are also an excellent source of protein-rich seed or seed meal for livestock and poultry.
• Unfortunately, yields of the three crops are stagnating in India at around 1.1 tons per hectare, significantly lower than the global averages.

3) Genetic improvements of crops

• Pests and pathogens can be best tackled by agrochemicals or by genetic interventions.
• A recent global level study on crop losses in the main food security hotspots for five major crops showed significant losses to pests — on average for wheat 21.5 per cent, rice 20 per cent, maize 22.5 per cent, potato 17.2 per cent, and soybean 21.4 per cent.
• India is one of the lowest users of pesticides.
• In 2014, comparative use of pesticides in kilograms per hectare in some select countries/regions is as following: Africa 0.30, India 0.36, EU countries 3.09, China 14.82, and Japan 15.93.
• A more benign method for dealing with pests is through breeding.
• The Green Revolution technologies were based on the effective use of germplasm and strong phenotypic selections.
• Recombinant DNA technologies since the 1970s have brought forth unprecedented opportunities for genetic improvement of crops.
• Since 2000, genomes of all the major crops have been sequenced.
• The big challenge is in the effective utilisation of the enormous sequence data that is available.
• India’s efforts in all three areas are half-hearted.

Way forward

• Over the last 20 years, India has been spending between 0.7 to 0.8 per cent of its GDP on R&D.
• This is way below the percentage of GDP spent by the developing countries and Asia’s rapidly growing economies.
• There are structural issues like lack of competent human resources and lack of policy clarity.
• However, the biggest impediment to agricultural R&D has been overzealous opposition to the new technologies.

Consider the question “India needs low-input, high-output agriculture. This cannot be achieved without science and technology. In light of this, examine how R&D could play a role in the advancement of agriculture in India.”

Conclusion

Maybe the present crisis in agriculture would lead to a greater appreciation of the need for strong public supported R&D in agriculture.

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