Agri Future – Hands up agriculture

Posts Tagged ‘Challenges’

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian Economy said Mahatma Gandhi five decades ago. Even today, as we enter the new millennium, the situation is still the same, with almost the entire economy being sustained by agriculture, which is the mainstay of the villages. Not only the economy, but also every one of us looks up to agriculture for our sustenance too. Although agriculture contributes only 21% of Indias GDP, its importance in the countrys economic, social, and political fabric goes well beyond this indicator. The rural areas are still home to some 72 percent of the India’s 1.1 billion people, a large number of whom are poor. Most of the rural poor depend on rain-fed agriculture and fragile forests for their livelihoods. The sharp rise in foodgrain production during Indias Green Revolution of the 1970s enabled the country to achieve self-sufficiency in foodgrains and stave off the threat of famine. Agricultural intensification in the 1970s to 1980s saw an increased demand for rural labor that raised rural wages and, together with declining food prices, reduced rural poverty. Sustained, although much slower, agricultural growth in the 1990s reduced rural poverty to 26.3 percent by 1999/00. Since then, however, the slowdown in agricultural growth has become a major cause for concern. Indias rice yields are one-third of Chinas and about half of those in Vietnam and Indonesia. With the exception of sugarcane, potato and tea, the same is true for most other agricultural commodities. The Government of India places high priority on reducing poverty by raising agricultural productivity. However, bold action from policymakers will be required to shift away from the existing subsidy-based regime that is no longer sustainable, to build a solid foundation for a highly productive, internationally competitive, and diversified agricultural sector.

There is growing concern about agricultural activities leading to environmental degradation and health risks associated with intensively produced foodstuffs. As a result interest in organic agriculture is increasing. This growing interest in sustainable and organic natural resource management and healthy eating, coupled with the increasing number of resource-poor farmers who cannot afford agrichemicals, has led to the potential for organic farming in addressing the issue of sustainable food production and livelihoods of resource-poor people in sub-Saharan Africa. Low in-put agriculture applies to systems that rely less on external, purchased inputs and more on internal resources. However, low-inout agriculture technolgy has conveyed a negative impression in various agriculture circles and this is cited as a major barrier to wider adoption of low-input agriculture technologies in Malawi and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. Increasingly, it has been recognized that environmental deterioration in Africa is a central factor holding back agriculture. The disappearance of forest areas accelerates land degradation. Even on gently sloping cropland, topsoil losses have been reported to range from 25 tonnes to 250 tonnes per hectare, across the region. One study has estimated that soil degradation and erosion in Africa reduces the productivity of land about 1 per cent a year. According to World Bank figures (1982), some 2.9 million hectares of forest were lost each year in sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s, mainly due to clearing by farmers and loggers. The Soil Reference and Information Centre (2007) in the Netherlands estimates that 321 million hectares of African land are moderately to extremely degraded. Since 1950, the amount of water available per person in Africa has fallen by more than half, and may plummet further to half its current level within the next 25 years. While African governments have become more aware of the relationship between the environment and agricultural productivity, much of the impetus for concrete and more integrated action has come from the grassroots. Confronted with deteriorating environmental conditions, villagers across the continent, often with support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have taken the initiative to set up woodlots, terrace hillsides, conserve threatened water sources and adopt more environmentally sustainable farming methods.