Double farm productivity, Kalam urges scientists

President A P J Abdul Kalam has asked agricultural scientists to help double the productivity of the available land to facilitate a higher output with less water and fewer farmers.

"By 2020, India will require to produce over 340 million tonnes of foodgrain to feed its growing population," Kalam said while inaugurating the 3rd Triennial Conference of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) here today.

An increase in production would necessitate surmounting many impeding factors. Land requirement for afforestation and environment preservation activities would force a situation where the present 170 million hectares of arable land would not be fully available for agriculture.

"It might shrink to 100 million hectares by 2020. In addition, there will be a shortage of water. The number of farmers available for agriculture will reduce to less than 50 per cent," the president cautioned.

Agricultural scientists needed to find innovative methods, using genomics research findings, to enhance the productivity of agricultural crops and make them tolerant to different kinds of stresses.

Also, there was a need for research to develop low-cost, energy-efficient, environment-friendly agro machinery which could be used by small farmers, he said.

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar expressed similar views and laid stress on more efficient use of resources. "Inefficient use of inputs not only leads to cost escalation, lowering profitability, but also adversely impacts the environment."

He said about 20 per cent of the world's farmland was irrigated and produced 40 per cent of the total food. By 2025, nearly 22 million hectares of irrigated rice areas in Asia might face "economic water scarcity" as supplies for irrigation became too expensive for farmers.

An additional 17 million hectares might confront "physical water scarcity" as supplies of irrigation dried up. This would need raising the water-use efficiency, he added.