Dr. Banarsi Lal
In developing countries most of the jobs are provided by the agricultural sector. In India 70 per cent of the livelihoods are provided by the agricultural industries. The term Green Revolution was coined by William Gaud of the United States in 1968. With Green Revolution the production and productivity of crops increased but it had some negative effects on the society and environment. With the increase in population, per capita land and water availability is declining. There is dire need to increase the food and other agricultural technologies by adopting some frontier agricultural technologies. There is need of Ever-Green Revolution that can increase the food grain production per unit of land and water for the increasing population and increase the income and employment among the farmers. A paradigm shift is needed in our agricultural research, extension and development strategies to mitigate the food grain problem. Evergreen Revolution can help to produce more crops from the available land, water and labour resources without effecting the ecological system and society. There is need to adopt the cropping or farming system approach to increase the income and employment. The research should not focus only on a single commodity but to the entire crops production system. The transition from the fatigue Green Revolution to an Evergreen Revolution needs a shift from crop-centered approach to the integrated farming based approach. In order to enhance the Indian farmers’ income agricultural scientists have the open opportunities to design the different farming systems. There is need to promote the eco-technologies and traditional knowledge of the farmers should be blended with the frontier agricultural and allied sectors technologies. Industrial countries are responsible to increase the temperature, sea level, precipitation and ultraviolet radiation. Smaller the farm, greater the efforts are needed to increase the income of the farmers. Employment is affected by the import of different agricultural commodities. There is need to put more attention on the post-harvesting technologies. There is a need to develop an approach not only to develop ecologically sound technologies for different areas but also to facilitate their utilization at gross root level.
Father of Green Revolution in India and renowned scientist M.S.Swaminathan gave a call for evergreen revolution, which implies productivity improvement in perpetuity without ecological and social harm. The ever green revolution involves the integration of ecological principles in technology development and dissemination. The former Director General of ICAR had worked with the noted farm scientist Norman E Borlaug to introduce high yielding varieties of wheat in Punjab,Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.The major problem associated with the Green Revolution are related to environmental factors such as depletion and pollution of groundwater, soil erosion and loss of biodiversity. It is these deficiencies that can be remedied through the evergreen revolution. The Green Revolution gave a sudden boost to the production and productivity of major cereals. Yet, there are several challenges and downstream consequences being faced by the Indian farmers. The impact of Green Revolution remained confined to the assured irrigated areas. The agricultural research has success to selected crops. There is a great difference between the actual and potential yields. Deterioration of soil health, ground water depletion, gap between rich and poor, regional imbalance, environmental pollution etc. are the consequences of intensive agriculture following Green Revolution. There is need to rectify the regional disparities, technological empowerment, food insecurity, fatigued green revolution, malnutrition etc. Many efforts have been made for rural upliftment. We have certain noteworthy achievements in the last 6 decades. We launched green revolution, yellow revolution, white revolution and also blue revolution in our country. But these uni-coloured and uni-dimensional revolutions are not sufficient. We need the techno-colour or multicolour revolutions. Our ex-President Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam emphasised that our country can become developed country by 2020.He initiated a scheme Providing Urban Facilities in Rural Areas(PURA) through four connectivities viz., physical, economic, electronic and spiritual to be brought in a cost-effective way. Now many experts are thinking for second green revolution. Our country needs to move towards ever-green revolution from green revolution. While working scientifically now the aspects of ecology and environment are kept in mind. In agriculture, we need to minimize the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Technology choice have a critical impact on many aspects of agricultural development, especially the way we choose it, the way we innovate and design them and the way we deliver them to masses. Technology must be carefully chosen to enable local people to acquire and imbibe knowledge according to their needs and environment. The technologies should be made in such a way that they upgrade their traditional skills and capabilities, minimize fatigue ,reduce drudgery, be innovative ,assured added value to existing methods of operation, generate employment, use local resources in both men and materials, need low capital investment ,low cost, be capable of replication and adoption, blend harmoniously with existing eco-systems leading to tangible improvements in the living conditions and self-sustained development of the farmers. It is necessary to develop and introduce appropriate technologies coupled with sound delivery systems which ensure economic and ecological sustainability and optimum use of local resources emphasizing on capacity building and technological empowerment, particularly small and marginal farmers.New agricultural technologies are of limited value if they are not adopted by the farmers due to their unsuitability to particular socio-economic and agro-climatic conditions. Many of improved agricultural technologies are partially adopted by the farmers or totally rejected by them. Main reasons of low adoption of technologies are: economically not viable, unavailability, not matching with the farmers needs and not compatible with their farming system. Mostly the agricultural technologies are not appropriate for small and marginal farmers. In conventional researches, there was negligible involvement of the farmers. These factors compel the extension personnel and researchers to shift to more farmer-oriented, holistic and interdisciplinary approach for technology development and its dissemination. There is need to involve the farmers for assessment and refinement of technology.
Presently our country is moving in the right direction to reach towards the developed country status by 2020 provided we need to prepare our rural base. Presently we need to adopt the renaissance concept taking advantage of the many advances in science and technology. We have the desired motivation-the mission 2020 vision. We should employ the modern tools of information technology and knowledge management. Now we have to integrate our ideas and design a management strategy to develop a strong rural technology base in agricultural, non-agricultural and service sectors. Rural road connectivity, rural housing, health, sanitation, safe drinking water projects are already in progress. Setting up of more and more rural technology based rural enterprises will help to upgrade human skills, generate employment and create wealth. Also era of growth and development will be ushered by the use of rural technologies.
It has been observed that rural technologies are not reaching to the rural people to an extent as they should have to reach because of various reasons like lack of awareness about rural technologies, lack of resources to access technologies, rural technologies are not cost-effective, not according to the needs of the users, not according to the culture of the people, not skillfully demonstrated etc. Policy makers need to understand rural people’s aspirations. Now the time has come to change our mindset for rural renaissance.
Technology works for a specific purpose, be it hi-tech or low-tech, hi-investment or low-investment oriented and need of hi-profile or low-profile marketing. Any technology that is developed by an individual or an institution needs to be transferred to the people. For rural development we need to prepare a Directory of Rural Technologies (DRT) which can be a valuable source for rural information. It can be particularly useful for potential entrepreneurs, consultants, financial agencies and field functionaries in rural areas.
Even the research and development scientists should have rural technology information for further improvements. Some rural technologies like handicrafts, artisans and traditional ones are not documented in the conventional sense. The directory of rural technologies should be available in local dialect of the respective areas.
(The writer is Chief Scientist & Head of KVK Reasi SKUAST-J)