Another Green Revolution

Another Green Revolution
an article by Dr K P Pravakaran, an Agricultural Scientist

Time to think for the Planet either we need another Green Revolution, if yes, do we need a 'deshaj' green revolution using jaibic krishi prakriya, desi beej and SRI like practice approach...

While continuing with our conventional inbreeding technology, we ought to scout for more and more native germplasms which have shown resilience in adverse conditions A PADDY FIELD NEEDS 2,000 LITRES OF WATER TO PRODUCE A KILOGRAM OF GRAIN. INDIA HAS THE LARGEST AREA UNDER RICE BUT ITS PRODUCTIVITY IS WAY BEHIND LEADING RICE PRODUCING COUNTRIES LIKE CHINA AND VIETNAM. CHINA NOTCHES UP AVERAGE YIELD OF 6.61 TONNES PER HECTARE AND INDIA'S 3.37 TONNES PALES IN COMPARISON
the farmer's search for sustainable livelihood and ecologically sound practices in the face of the climatic uncertainties and dipping water table, coupled with unsustainable chemical-oriented agricultural practices, and the government's focus on industry-promoted solutions to boost rice yield.
In Mandya district of Karnataka, paddy farmer Boregowda of Shivahalli village switched to traditional varieties, Coimbatore Sanna and Doddibatha, a collection from his grandfather's times, from the dwarf `high yielding' Jaya, propped up by a high input technology. Output declined from about 2.5-2.7 tonnes per acre, to about 1.8 tonnes. But he more than made up the loss because he followed organic practices and sold his rice as `organic rice' for a much higher price. These local varieties had disappeared after the Kannambadi dam brought irrigation to the area. When one switches from the high input technology to low input organic agriculture, initially the yield will drop. But invariably after about three seasons, yield stabilises. Boregowda now harvests about 2.7-3 tonnes per acre, the yield as much or even more than Jaya, and what is more, his rice fetches a much better market price, because it is organically grown and tastes far better than the insipid Jaya.
It is the same experience either in far off Koraput in Orissa or Palakkad in Kerala, where the Navarai variety is highly sought after by practitioners of Ayurveda. The point to be examined is: Can traditional varieties alone meet India’s growing food needs? The Planning Commission estimates that the country will require 122.1 million tonnes of rice by 2020, to meet food security norms. At the current 1.34 per cent annual growth rate in rice production, India can hope to harvest no more than 106 million tonnes, leaving a huge shortfall of more than 16 million tonnes.

It is here that the agricultural mandarins in New Delhi are talking about hybrid rice.

The country, having made remarkable strides with hybrid rice, is now going full steam on Super Hybrid rice. China started the efforts way back in the Sixties, coinciding with our own green revolution, when the mention of hybrid rice to our agricultural messiahs would have been like teaching Latin to a fourth grader! They were just content with importing the dwarf wheat seed from Mexico (courtesy Normam Borlaug), multiplying it and distributing among farmers, and calling it a ‘green revolution’.

India needs to tread carefully on the hybrid rice bandwagon. When we transpose the Chinese model, we ought to remember that, by and large, our soils are far less fertile than China’s; we have aberrant climatic conditions compared to conducive climate in China. More than 90 per cent of rice fields are irrigated in China (compared to 56 per cent in India, the rest being direct seeded and rain-fed), and Chinese resort to
high fertiliser use. If one were to study the spread of hybrid rice elsewhere in the world, the report card is dismal, except for Vietnam, an early entrant to the hybrid technology in 1985, compared to China’s in 1964. Japan, another big rice producer and consumer, has practically rejected the technology and confined itself to the usual inbred line technology, as in India. But the most important point to be taken care of is the public-private sector tie-up in hybrid rice seed production. Whereas in China not a single private seed company is allowed, and all the 50 producing seeds are government funded, in India only 15 are government sponsored institutions like the Directorate of Rice Research in Hyderabad.

Thirty are private firms. This is an inherent danger, because, once seed production is monopolised by private trade, the Indian farmer becomes a slave to MNCs.

Hybrid rice is riddled with problems.

Seed quality is poor, production will add at least `2,000 to the farmer’s budget, the shelf life is limited, multiplication facility is inadequate, and to cap it all, there is trade hostility. While continuing with our conventional inbreeding technology, we ought to scout for more native germplasms, which have shown resilience in many adverse environmental conditions like drought, excess salt in soil, submergence due to flooding, which are capturing the attention of farmers in many Indian pockets.

To ensure that we do not abuse our soil or water resources with unsustainable high input technology of chemical agriculture, we could even look at the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), where input use is minimal, both fertilisers, water and pesticide. To make a rice revolution happen, our hugely funded public sector in agriculture must wake up from its current slumber.