he global
demand for food is projected to double by 2050, making the issue of food
and nutrition security one of the most pressing challenges of our time.
According to estimates by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
and the World Food Programme, about one in six people go hungry every
day and every six seconds a child dies from under-nourishment related
causes. The corresponding figures for India, even by the most
conservative estimates, indicate that more than 100 million people
remain hungry or malnourished every day. The scenario for India presents
an even greater challenge owing to multiple factors s
uch as a population
growth curve that continues to be steep, rapid takeover of agricultural
land by competing demands of urbanisation and industrialisation and
increasing economic inequity across the population.
Food security is a complex challenge that will
require an integrated and multi-disciplinary response and synergy of
efforts of various stakeholders and policy interventions. Siloed
approaches and solutions will certainly not be adequate as other
exogenous and endogenous realities such as climate change,
desertification and urbanisation add to the intensity and complexity of
the food security challenge not just in an additive but in an
exponential manner. In this article, we look at some of the critical
aspects that need to be addressed for achieving the goal of food
security.
Optimising Agricultural Productivity
It is estimated that agricultural output will have to
increase by 60% to feed the world population beyond 2050. It is
therefore a given that the per acre productivity of land needs to
improve drastically to cater to the rising demand. The imperative is
even graver considering that the increased demand has to be met from
even less land than is being cultivated today as competitive uses take
over agricultural land. The silver lining to this challenge is that a
diverse portfolio of technologies for increasing agri-productivity for
various agro-ecological zones exist and have been verifiably
demonstrated. Technologies such as the system of rice and wheat
intensification (SRI and SWI), organic agriculture and aquaponics have
demonstrated quantum leaps in productivity that are also environmentally
benign and in some cases even regenerative. However, scaling of these
technologies for definitive impact calls for an integrated approach
based on building farmers’ capacities, enabling access to modern
technologies through both financial support and extension services,
improving market infrastructure, public and private investment and
cooperation for knowledge and technology transfer.
Agricultural Diversification
Efforts and initiatives for increasing food
production in India have for too long had a largely blinkered focus on
the production of major grains. Both research investment and financial
instruments made available to the farmers have narrowly focused on
improving the productivity of rice and wheat. This is quite ironic
because malnutrition due to inadequate availability of proteins and
micro-nutrients in the diet is a reality for large sections of the
populace. Moreover nearly 80% of the agricultural land in India is
rain-fed and therefore more amenable to the production of pulses and
oilseeds rather than water intensive crops such as the major cereals.
Traditional minor grains such as jowar, bajra and finger millets that
were suited to the rain-fed conditions have been abandoned in favour of
the major cereals as an outcome of the short-sighted policies and farm
subsidies that encouraged this shift.
It is a pressing need to redirect investments,
research and extension services into pulses and oilseeds production that
not only are more suited to the rain-fed agro-ecological conditions, but
also have a lower water and carbon footprint and offer more sustained
productivities. This will also restore to a significant extent the
nutritional balance in the food production of the country.
Reclaiming
Wastelands and Urban Spaces
In a rapidly urbanising India, land available for
agriculture is shrinking by the day. This makes it imperative to reclaim
our large tracts of wasteland for productive agricultural purposes. Some
of Development Alternatives’ experiments in Bundelkhand, a drought prone
region in Central India, on reclaiming severely degraded land simply by
recreating the conditions for nature to take its own course have yielded
astonishing results that indicate that relatively small interventions
and investments are adequate for converting wastelands into productive
agricultural land assets. What is required is strategic investment in
improving the water harvesting potential of these lands, coupled with
building capacities of the local farmers and pastoralists to sustainably
manage these land and water resources.
India can no longer afford to hold on to the idea
that the rural areas will bear sole responsibility of providing food to
the entire nation. We have to be innovative in reclaiming urban spaces
for agricultural purposes as well. Modern methods such as aquaponics
make it possible to grow substantive quantities of food on limited
resources and space, thereby opening up previously untapped urban spaces
for local food production thereby reducing dependency on the rural
sector. Pilot projects employing aquaponics in India, both in rural and
urban contexts have demonstrated promising results, such as productive
utilisation of rooftops and 20% increase in crop yields besides the
additional harvest of fish. These are new and radical approaches that
will require policy frameworks that drive technology innovation and
transfer in these spaces.
Sustainable Agriculture for Adaptation to Climate Change![](images/Lead.jpg)
With climate change impacts becoming increasingly
frequent and thereby undeniable, it is extremely important to shift to
more sustainable and climate adapted forms of agriculture that are more
resource efficient, less polluting and do not endanger the production
systems themselves in the long term. Specifically, the availability of
water is slated to become a major limiting factor and so the approaches
and technologies to reduce the water footprint of crop production (more
crop per drop) need to be scaled.
The ongoing global dialogue for the development of
sustainable development goals (SDGs) that are expected to replace the
millennium development goals (MDGs) that expire in 2015 also underscores
the critical importance of sustainable agriculture in achieving food
security goals. In fact one of the key proposed SDG goals is titled
‘food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture’.
Putting the Farmer First
Putting the farmer at the core of efforts to optimise
production systems will necessarily have to be a key principle on which
to operate. Farmers need to be recognised and engaged, not just as
passive recipients of subsidies, technologies and knowhow but also as
active co-developers of locally adapted approaches and methods and as
sources of traditional and grassroots knowledge. The collectivisation of
farmers is a crucial step in effectively linking them to extension
services and markets and for dissemination of new technologies and
approaches through peer to peer knowledge exchange. Investment in the
building of farmers’ capacities to assess, adapt and adopt modern
technologies and to better interact with the market and the scientific
community are called for if the policy and research efforts for food
security are to effectively translate into sustainable on-ground action.
Conclusion
While this article has touched upon some of the key
aspects that need to be addressed to meet the food security challenge,
it is important to reiterate that this is not a comprehensive list and
there are other equally important aspects such as social security
systems, reforms in the public distribution system, fair pricing
economic instruments, market enabling policy frameworks and policy
coherence within and across sectors that also need to be addressed in
tandem in a synergistic manner. This will require efforts of multiple
stakeholders, from the farmer to the scientist and the policy maker to
converge and collaborate across disciplines.
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