Implications of Food Security
06 Jul, 2001 · 518
Col. P.K.Gautam (retd) suggests the full use of IT to achieve food security
In a recent issue of Scientific American the editorial had mentioned that the three biggest international controversies are, use of genetically modified crops, the prevention of global warming and the feasibility of anti-missile defence. The first two of these are directly and indirectly linked to the food security. Food is nothing but the outcome of the environment. Security of individuals and nations depends on secure food supply.
China
, more grain may be needed as cattle feed to support livestock and the meat industry at the cost of grain for human consumption. Agricultural land also gets diverted for production of cash crops and other non-cereal products.
China
has already commenced import of grain. We should not get into that cycle of importing food as in 1960s. We have twice the arable land as that in
China
. Interestingly,
China
’s out put is double than ours. The latest Indian economic survey in the Economist has attributed the low rice and wheat yield to small and fragmented land holdings besides other reasons. Present per capita land holding is 0.20 hectares, by 2025 it will be 0.12 hectares.
India
but also throughout the world is divided. The debate gets complicated, as not all are experts in molecular biology or gene technology. Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, the pioneer in developing the hybrid strain of wheat of the green revolution, pointed out that urbanisation leads to ignorance about agriculture.
India
, while experimenting with GM, we need to retain our traditional knowledge and practices making full use of IT. The so-called coarse grain like bajra and millets (jowar/sorghum) may be more nutritious for the poor (and even the affluent) than rice or wheat. For better nutritional security, production of foodgrains, fruits, vegetable and milk suited to our agricultural zones and traditional food habits may be better.
Global warming and climatic changes may affect the cropping pattern and retard food output. Even if global warming gets controlled, the three most urgent factors that would need to be faced squarely are population growth, urbanisation and deterioration of the agricultural environment due to factors other than global warming.
At present due to imbalances in the political economy we may be having a buffer stock of 40-50 million tons of grains, yet a majority of the poor are hungry. This is due to lack of purchasing power. It is visualised that economic reforms with healthy GDP growth will gradually get rid of this problem. But certainly we need to double our food out put to feed 153 crores as against the present 100 crores by 2050. Each year the population growth of 1.8% has to be off set by matching food output.
Doubling of population may require fold increase in agricultural production. This non-linearity is because with affluence and urbanisation, the food habits change and the tendency is to go higher up in the food chain besides move over consumption and wastage. Higher food chain demands more grain, water and other resources. As has happened in the case of
The agricultural environment is also getting degraded. Soil erosion, desertification, salinsation/water logging of irrigated land, water deficiencies and drought, tropical deforestation and decline in biodiversity are the challenges under which grain needs to grow at about 2% as against the present 0.3%.
The mechanized cum chemicalised agriculture which gave us the green revolution has now shown signs of decline. Top agricultural scientists are debating on alternative strategies to revive ecological farming. Yet to increase cropping intensity from 1.3 to 1.5 quickly, more production and input of hydrocarbon based fertilisers is proposed.
This brings us then to the question of genetically modified (GM) crops. Opinion not only in
Biotechnology “snips” (seek, identity and extract) the desired properties from a plant or any other organism in a short time and “splices” (transfer) them to another plant. New crop varieties, which are drought tolerant, resistant to insects and weeds and enhanced with vital nutrients like vitamin A and iron, can then be grown. Rice is devoid of protein. Meat, fish or pulses are the basic sources of protein, which the poor can ill afford. The ‘golden rice’ is one experimental type of GM rice rich in protein. Unfortunately the GM business is owned by top multinationals and agribusiness is only for their vested interests and profits. The fear is that inputs like seeds would be only available through them. Another controversy is that it will create a monoculture and devastate the biodiversity. That may be like a self-serving biological weapon on a target nation.
This decade will be crucial, as many decisions and policies would need to be made on GM foods and how our farmers are going to benefit from it. In
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