Noted agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan on Monday said that there is no time to relax on the food production front as the country, through the recently adopted Food Security Act, has legal obligation to provide foodgrains to majority population at a cheap rate.
"India is the only country in world which now has a legislation guaranteeing social protection against the hunger. No other country has this kind of legal commitment though zero hunger programmes are there", he said at the inaugural ceremony of the 4th Odisha Environment Congress (OEC)-2013.
The theme for this year's OEC is 'Agriculture and Environment -Issues, Challenges and Potentials for Odisha'. The programme was jointly organized by Human Development Foundation, Centre for Environment and Development and Regional Museum of Natural History.
The right to food legislation has already been made into an act in September this year. It is legal commitment to provide certain quantity of food at a very low price as it is the only way to tackle the under nutrition prevailing in the country, said Swaminathan, who is also known as the father of the Green Revolution in the country.
He said, "We can't be complacent just because the Union government has seventy million tonnes of rice and wheat, as the stock will disappear soon with the implementation of the act".
The Food Security Act gives right to subsidised food grain to about 67 percent of India's 1.2 billion people and provides for penalty for non-compliance by public servants. About 75 per cent of rural and 50 percent of the urban population are entitled to five kg foodgrains per month each atRs 3, Rs 2, Re 1 per kg for rice, wheat and coarse grains, respectively.
Speaking on the occasion, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said, "Even though successive natural calamities like flood, drought and cyclones have been affecting our productivity, sustained efforts through various inputs like expansion of irrigation, farm mechanisation, seed replacement, credit support to small and marginal farmers and improved agricultural practices have started to yield results."
In the last decade, the state government has enhanced the irrigation potential from 29 per cent to about 50 per cent of the state's cultivable land through initiatives like mega lift irrigation projects, check dams, deep borewells, small and minor irrigation projects, canal lining etc.
It may be noted that agriculture and allied activities contribute about 22.46 per cent of the net domestic product of the state. The sector also provides employment (both directly and indirectly) to around 65 per cent of the total workforce.
