INDIA MUST REFORM ITS AGRICULTURE AND IMPROVE RESEARCH ON PLANT BIOLOGY

It is acknowledged by all world experts that “more people die each year from hunger and malnutrition than from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined”; yet we are still obsessed with disproportionately higher government investment on medical research as compared to agriculture and plant biology. I understand the need to make profit from investment on research, but national Governments have a bigger role to play. Such high spending on medical research may be justified for rich countries but surely not for countries like India. Increasing food prices, less availability of food will hit much harder the poorer countries like India. But like many other under developed countries, our Government seems not too worried.

India needs to increase its priority in this crucial sector and revamp agricultural and plant research setup exponentially. Probably, Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) is the poorly managed scientific organization in India, poorer than even CSIR. I hope Indian government will review the situation and reform Indian agriculture and Plant biological – agricultural research.

There is a nice, comprehensive website on food security launched by UK’s BBSRC. You can get some interesting info regarding world food security; for example :

The 2008 food price hike caused riots or civil unrest in a number of countries, including Yemen, Somalia,
Senegal, Pakistan, Mozambique, Indonesia, India, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Bangladesh . The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stated that the food crisis had thrown an additional 75M people into hunger and poverty in 2007. The UN’s annual report on global food security confirms that more than one billion people – a sixth of the world’s population – are undernourished. The world’s population is projected to increase from 6 to 9Bn by 2050 – including Africa’s population to double from 1 to 2Bn – the only continent that is not self-sufficient in food production. Demand for food is projected to increase by 50% by 2030 and double by 2050. But while demand for food is rising, the amount of land suitable for food production is likely to decrease – mainly through pressures from other uses, and climate change, although the extent is disputed. The World Bank estimates that cereal production needs to increase by 50% and meat production by 85% between 2000 and 2030 to meet demand.

Extracted from AgriGold Swarna Sedyam