Dr. Parveen Kumar
The population all across the globe is on the rise and on the rise also is the threats to our food systems. The threats emanate mostly from our crude and unsustainable practices that have led to a series of changes on this planet including the climate change. Depleting water resources, deteriorating health of soil, toxicity in the air and loss of bio diversity are the consequences of various anthropogenic activities and pose a great threat to life and various life forms on this planet. Every year about 800,000 people die from causes attributable to climate change. About 1.8 million die from diarrhoea due to lack of access to clean water supply and sanitation and from poor hygiene. About 3.5 million die from malnutrition and about 60,000 die in natural disasters.
The effects of global warming result in reduce of yields of crops like Wheat, Paddy, Maize and important fruit crops. Agricultural productivity might increase modestly in temperate regions for some crops in response to a local warming of 1-3 °C (1.8-5.4 °F), but productivity will generally decrease with further warming. The warming of oceans is predicted to have an adverse impact on commercial fisheries by changing the distribution and productivity of various fish species. The livestock will also be affected by increasing temperature. It will result in lesser milk yields, adverse effect on metabolism of animals and lactation period.
The writing on the wall is thus clear; we won’t be able to cater to the food requirements of the growing populace on this planet with the existing agricultural methods. The quote ‘changing waters’ reflect the changing nature of life. As the water in the river is constantly flowing which means that even within a few minutes water at a particular spot won’t be the same as it was earlier. When seen in the context of agriculture, the quote thus conveys the meaning that agriculture also needs to continuously change itself, it has to be a dynamic entity, assimilating and absorbing the positive changes both at the local level as well as from outside. It has to shape and reshape itself in order to sustain the life on this planet. This transition ultimately has to be a sustainable one so that food as well as nutritional security of all is met. The sustainable transition will involve:
Advance Farming System: An Advance Farming System (AFS) is an integrated farming system based on all the usage of new technology which replaces human labour and intelligence with different tools. Advance Farming Systems originated with the introduction of Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance for tractors in the early 1990s and since then this GPS based tractor guidance has become one of the examples of application of precision farming globally. The agriculture sector has always been a labour intensive and under severe pressure to be more and more productive. AFS uses a wide array of IT tools such as GPS guidance, sensors, drones, robotics, autonomous vehicles, variable rate technology, GPS based soil sampling, automated hardware and telemetric and other control systems. All of these have the capability to analyze large amount of data on a short period of time thereby reducing the time taken and the labour intensiveness. It is soft ware managed and sense monitored.
Promotion of SreeAnna (Millets): Considering the immense potential of millets in nutritional security, their ability to withstand climatic stress and grow in regions otherwise not feasible for cultivation with minimal inputs; these are now being recognized as an ideal solution for countries to increase self-sufficiency and reduce their reliance on imported cereal grains. In India, the year 2018 was celebrated as National Year of Millets. Government has now recognized these millets as Nutri-cereals and comprise of Sorghum (Jowar), Pearl Millet (Bajra), Finger Millet (Ragi/Mandua), Minor Millets i. e Foxtail Millet (Kangani/Kakun), Proso Millet (Cheena), Kodo Millet (Kodo), Barnyard Millet (Sawa/Sanwa/Jhangora), Little Millet(Kutki) and two Pseudo Millets (Buck-wheat (Kuttu) and Amaranthus (Chaulai). Now, with the year 2023 being celebrated as International Year of Millets, the message is loud and clear. All of us have to work on their revival. Their revival also resonates with some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2 relates to zero hunger, SDG 3 relates to good health and well-being, SDG 12 relates to sustainable consumption and production and SDG 13 being related to climate action).
Enterprise Diversification: Agriculture is not only confined to crops or livestock. Agriculture encompasses a wide range of enterprises which among others also include goatry, sheep, apiculture, sericulture, piggery, floriculture, horticulture, olericulture etc. Continuing with a single enterprise runs the risk of ruining the fortunes of farmers in case any calamity struck the fields and results in devastation of crops. We need to have approaches which ensure a regular income for the farmers even in case of failure of one crop/enterprise. One such approach is to have more than one enterprise or produce more than one product to avoid having your income totally dependent on the production and price of one product. If profit from one product is poor, profit from producing other products may prevent total profit from falling below acceptable levels. This is what is called as enterprise diversification. Having more than one enterprise ensures that farmer gets compensated from one of the enterprise in case of failure of other. Infact, enterprise diversification is a self-insuring strategy used by farmers to protect against various risks..
Farm Mechanization: One of the limitations of the agricultural sector in the country is the low level of farm mechanization. On the contrary, the fact is that agricultural mechanization helps in increasing production, productivity and profitability by achieving timeliness in farm operations, bringing precision in metering and placement of inputs, reducing available input losses, increasing utilization efficiency of costly inputs (seed, chemical, fertilizer, irrigation, water etc.), reducing unit cost of produce, enhancing profitability and competitiveness in the cost of operation. In the times to come, the timeliness of various farm operations will be enhanced with the use of drones and robots. The use of drones to promote farm mechanization is all set to play a bigger role in areas like crop surveillance, spraying, sowing, and coping-up with weather uncertainties and precision farming. Another innovative device in this regard is the agricultural robots which have the potential to replace men power. Robots are specialized articles of technology that are capable of assisting the humans with a wide range of operations. They have the capability to analyze, contemplate, and carry out a multitude of functions, and they can be programmed to grow and evolve to match the needs of various tasks. These are being used for an incredible number of tasks to ease the burden on the farmers. Their primary role is to tackle labor-intensive, repetitive, and physically demanding tasks.
Digital Agriculture: Availability of timely and relevant information to the farming community is a critical input in the agriculture production system. Unfortunately due to lack of adequate number of human resources, the information seldom reaches out to them in time. This ultimately affects productivity and production. As such new tools and techniques which do not require the presence of personnels physically in the fields with the farming community have to be developed and exploited. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are acknowledged as key players in knowledge exchange, targeted recommendations, market integration and access to financial services. Digital Agriculture is “ICT and data ecosystems to support the development and delivery of timely, targeted information and services to make farming profitable and sustainable while delivering safe nutritious and affordable food for all. Today agriculture is witnessing what is called ‘digitalisation’. Digitalisation of agriculture has also emerged as another revolution, more so for the large numbers of the world’s smallholder farmers. Thus Digitalisation has to be promoted for transition to sustainable agriculture.
Natural Farming: In the recent times, the Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) has emerged as the most popular model in India. According to ‘Natural Farming’ principles, plants get 98% of their supply of nutrients from the air, water, and sunlight. And the remaining 2% can be fulfilled by good quality soil with plenty of friendly microorganisms just like that exist in forests and other natural systems. A Natural Farming system believes that the soil is always supposed to be covered with organic mulch which creates humus and encourages the growth of friendly microorganisms. Desi cow is also an indispensible part of ‘Natural Farming’ system. The system requires cow dung and cow urine (Gomutra) obtained from Indian breed cow only. Desi cow is apparently the purest as far as the microbial content of cow dung, and urine goes. Another important aspect is that of Cultures. A farm made bio-culture named ‘Jeevamrutha’ is added to the soil instead of any fertilizers to improve micro flora of soil. Jeevamrutha is derived from very little cow dung and cow urine of desi cow breed. Natural, farm-made pesticides like Dashparni ark and Neem Astra are used to control pests and diseases. Weeds are considered essential and used as living or dead mulch layer. In ZBNF, multi-cropping is encouraged over single crop method.
(The author writes on agriculture and social issues).
