The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has called for a second “green revolution” during an address to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
Speaking at the council’s 83rd Foundation Day, Singh commented that despite record crop production in 2011, “the challenges that India’s agriculture faces in the coming years remain enormous.
“The total demand for foodgrains is projected to touch 280 million tonnes by the year 2020-21,” he said. “Meeting this demand will necessitate a growth rate of nearly 2 per cent per annum in food production.”
During the 10 year period 1997-98 to 2006-07, India’s food grain production grew at an average annual rate of just 1 per cent.
“We clearly need a second green revolution that is more broad-based, more inclusive and more sustainable,” Singh commented.
India spent around 0.6 per cent of its GDP on agricultural research, a figure that “needs to be enhanced at least two to three times by 2020” in order to meet demands for new technologies and production processes.
Funding for agriculture was cut by six per cent in India’s budget in March, fuelling concerns about the nation’s food security.
Singh also stressed the need for Indian universities to provide the best academic environment for students, as well as hands on training, in order to ensure that they graduated with the skills needed in the agricultural industry.
Rain-fed agriculture plays an important part in India’s economy, contributing around 45 per cent of its total agricultural produce, and Singh urged scientists to focus on developing new technologies and methods for soil and water management.
Other areas in which he demanded better focus were disease management, the application of biotechnology and climate change.
Singh also pointed to a lack of communication between researchers and farmers, stressing that the country’s needs must drive research priorities.
“Unfortunately, there is an impression among many that the National Agricultural Research System has become somewhat insular over time and responds less well to specific demands from those in the field,” he said.
“Unless you engage with farmers and their problems, you will not succeed in transforming new knowledge into higher productivity and better incomes for our farmers,” he told researchers and scientists at the meeting. “You must get your research questions primarily from the farmers.”
This is not the first time an Indian official has called for a second green revolution. On 13 February Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, said that greater effort in agricultural innovation could make India the “food basket of the world”.