agri review
efficiently, conserve existing land,
improve biodiversity and most
importantly integrate the vast
multitude of smallholders
currently holding less than two
hectares into the mainstream of
the developmental process,”
explained Mr Solanki.
This Kharif season, Niti Aayog
will undertake a pilot project in
about five villages in Bihar along
with Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation to identify that if a
favourable external environment
is ensured, whether that will help
in increasing the productivity of
pulses or not.
Disagreeing with the global way of
measuring hunger, Prof Ramesh
Chand opines, “Their definition is
all encompassing, it is a very ideal
definition, it talks about adequate
and nutritious food at all time for
all people but when it comes to
measurement they just use only
dietary energy that too norm at
1,800 kilo calories,” added Prof
Chand. He further said that India
needs to have its own estimate to
measure the extent of hunger like
in case of other indicators like
education, poverty and others to
ensure that food security related
norms are used in proper way for
human development.
Policy distortions need to be
corrected
As per Dr R C Srivastava, Vice
Chancellor, Rajendra Agricultural
University, the delivery system
has to be improved. “Experience
in Bihar tells us that farmer not
using proper irrigation
methodologies. They are using
diesel pumps and it is not feasible
for them to shift to electricity
owing to huge costs. Let us fix the
target for agriculture and reduce
the farm dependency to 20%.
Shifting to urban areas cannot be
30
BioVoiceNews | July 2016
“
The Good
Growth Plan is
particularly
relevant to India
as agriculture is
the mainstay of
the country’s
economy and
provides
employment to
more 50 per cent
of its population.
stopped altogether but balance is
essential.”
Mono crops are an important part
in Asia. But the multi-speciality
farming or any other forms of
livelihood have not been tried yet.
If crops fail, the farmers are down
and sick. Reducing the
vulnerability of farmers has not
been done. Even Mr Shyam
Bahadur Khadka, FAO
representative in India says that
his organization has not been able
to do much on that. “The nutrient
content in food in Punjab is 14%
while in Himachal it is 6%. It is
not only food production but the
nutrient content as well.
Production system is good but the
policies are unbalanced.
Mr Khadka terms the ground
water situation alarming. “Neither
the state nor central government
are taking care of it. Agriculture is
not to play games or else it will
start playing games with us. That
would be too bad or humanity.”
Reaching balance between states
and central government is very
essential says Dr V V Sadamate,
Former Additional commissioner
(Extension), Ministry of
Agriculture, Government of India,
adding that the sustainability and
converging schemes of all hues is
very important. “Make all models
accountable to farmers along with
the technology delivery
mechanism which I feel is an
important part of it. “Absence of
these will not help. Besides that
the extension system weak in
allied sectors and improvement is
required,” he says.
Time to time analogy feedback
from small land farmers will also
help in real time data from the
ground zero. Apart from efficient
irrigation system that is the key to
increased food production, we
have to provide disseminate right
knowledge on parallel livelihood
plans to these farmers. This is the
time our policymakers think
seriously about the small time
farmers. Either they have to be
told not to cultivate and shift out
or they have to be promoted with
incentives. They cannot be simply
left to starve.