Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Technology can help increase agricultural productivity: Experts

AHMEDABAD: Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) organized a one day workshop on 'Sustainable Agriculture: Harnessing Technologies - Harvesting Prosperity' here on Wednesday. The workshop outlined the core issue of increasing agriculture productivity, which is vital to meet India's food security.

Attended by national and international experts in the fields of sustainability and agriculture, the workshop focused broadly on the following three themes: Meeting the Challenges for Food Security, Biotechnology revolution and Agricultural technology and Economics. "Food is key (for the future generations of the world)! If we do not have sufficient food, then we will have socio-economic problems. And that [problems] will destabilize the entire political system of not only our country but the entire world," said Dr Kirit N Shelat, executive chairman, National Council for Climate Change - Sustainable Development.


Stressing on climate resilient agriculture, Dr Shelat mentioned about providing sustainable livelihood to farmers, as they are key in producing food. He also stressed that by 2030 India would need to produce an additional 100 million ton to feed the growing population and the growth rate of agriculture needs to be sustained at 8%-9% as compared to the current 2%-3%. BT Cotton helped Gujarat farmers to increase their income. India has enough safeguards to protect the farmers if GM technology fails. Like Gujarat in cotton, many other states have used technology in agriculture for sustainable livelihood of farmers.

Experts at the workshop discussed innovative solutions like biotechnology to meet sustainability challenge of agriculture. Dispelling some of the myth associated with biotechnology, Dr. RS Fougat, Head of Department of Biotechnology, Anand Agricultural University, said that the technology is not limited to genetic modified crops only and has potential to foster sustainable agriculture practices through improving yields. "Biotechnology is good for the environment also," said Fougat.


Tran Trong Chien, Consultant, AGS Co, Vietnam, Prof Poornima Verma, Faculty, IIM-A, and Roger Navarro, Farmer and President of Philippines Maize Federation (PHILMAIZE) were some of the participants at the workshop.
Source : TOI

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