How Indian agriculture should change after COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of India’s Agri food system and accentuated the need for agricultural market reforms and digital solutions to connect farmers to markets, to create safety nets and ensure reasonable working conditions, and to decentralize Agri food systems to make them more resilient

Climate-smart policies for Indian agriculture

Climate change is perhaps the most extreme challenge in agriculture in India and across the world is facing now-a-days and has to deal within future. There have been overwhelming and growing scientific evidences to establish that the world is getting warmer due to climate change and such increasing weather variabilities and worsening extremes will impact the agriculture sector more and more adversely.The growth story of Indian agriculture since the days of food scarcity (in the mid-1960s) to the present satisfactory production level of food grains has been very impressive. In these efforts, land degradation and environmental challenges have however, emerged to thwart sustainability of agri-food systems. The frequent occurrences of natural disasters like food, drought, storms, hails, cyclones have led to severe hardship and farm distress. Feeding a growing population and ensuring food and nutritional security in future thus becomes a daunting challenge in a changing climate. It is estimated that the requirement of annual food grains would be to the level of 450 million metric tonnes against the current production of 257 to 285 million tonne during 2012-13 to 2017-18 for a burgeoning Indian population which is projected at 1.65 billion in 2050

Lessons from a pandemic to repurpose India's agricultural policy

To transform the food systems in India following the COVID-19 pandemic, the government will urgently need to repurpose existing agricultural policies. India’s policy regimes like the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the Public Distribution Systems (PDS), coupled with subsidies on irrigation, power, and farm inputs, are skewed in favour of staple crops like rice and wheat. Even though some climate-resilient and nutritious cereals like sorghum and millets get some support pricing, this seems ineffective as the policy is biased in favour of the “big two” staples

Indian agriculture: The route post-CoP 26

India’s pledge of Panchamrit (five-fold strategy) to fight climate change, announced during the 26th Conference of the Parties (CoP26) at Glasgow, Scotland, has caught global attention. The country’s new commitments include reaching 500 giga-watt (GW) of non-fossil fuel energy capacity by 2030; producing 50 per cent of energy requirements via renewable energy sources by 2030; a reduction of 1 billion tonnes of carbon by 2030; reducing the carbon emission intensity of the GDP by 45 per cent by 2030; and most importantly, achieving the target of net-zero emissions by 2070. A basket of agreements was signed by groups of countries during the Glasgow Summit. Here, we focus our discussions on agriculture and food systems and how India should prepare and act to fight the challenge of climate change in light of CoP26. As many as 26 countries signed the Sustainable Agriculture Policy Action Agenda at the summit to set a course of action to protect food systems and prevent loss of biodiversity against climate change. The countries laid down their commitments with a pledge “to use land sustainably and put protection and restoration of nature at the heart of all”. India did not sign the agenda as its Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), one of the missions within the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), is already operational to deal with the issue of climate change in the agriculture sector. At the present inflection point, when the agricultural sector in these countries, and for that matter across the planet, is threatened by the adversities brought by climate change, these initiatives seem to be a good way to reinvigorate efforts to promote and practice sustainable agriculture technologies. While Indian agriculture is adversely impacted by the vicissitudes of climate change, the sector also is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As per the Third Biennial Update Report submitted by the Government of India in early 2021 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the agriculture sector contributes 14 per cent of the total GHG emissions (energy 75.01 per cent; industrial process and product use 8 per cent; and waste 2.7 per cent, as per 2016 data). Within the sector, 54.6 per cent of GHG emissions were due to enteric fermentation, followed by 17.5 per cent from rice cultivation, 19.1 per cent from fertiliser applied to agricultural soils, 6.7 per cent from manure management, and 2.2 per cent due to field burning of agricultural residues. Therefore, effective mitigation measures and appropriate adaptation technologies must be taken to reduce GHG emissions from the agriculture sector. India’s approach has been a balancing act between growth and sustainability in its climate change policies and it is leading the developing nations to place agriculture in the ongoing negotiations. The National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture, as part of National Action Plan on Climate Change for more than a decade now, has focused to make Indian agriculture sustainable, considering likely risks arising from climate variability. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research and International Agricultural Research Centres of the CGIAR system (a France-headquartered public agricultural innovation network), including International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), have developed climate smart agricultural technologies and approaches to assist the agricultural sector to be less vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change

The emerging threat of Fall Armyworm in India

The Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda; commonly referred to as "FAW" )is a crop pest native to the Americas. It was first formally reported in West Africa in January 2016 and has spread to several countries across Africa (except a few countries in North Africa). The pest has been reported for the first time in India in Karnataka in July 2018) and subsequently in a few other states, such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Odisha. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) - National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources (NBAIR) issued a pest alert on 30th July 2018 based on results of surveys conducted between 9-18 July 2018 that recorded more than 70% prevalence of the FAW in a maize field in Chikkaballapur, Karnataka. The pest later spread to eight to nine districts of Karnataka, such as Shivamogga, Bellary, Belgaum and Hassan. The FAW damage has been the highest in maize, while several other crops, such as sorghum, sugarcane, millets and vegetables are also vulnerable to the attack. The pest has caused significant concerns among the stakeholders and heightened the attention of the Government machinery

COVID-19 calls for renewed focus on eating right and natural

India has achieved significant poverty reduction in the last couple of years and the middle-class has burgeoned considerably. A World Economic Forum research and consumer survey predicted that by 2030, India will no longer be an economy led by the bottom of the pyramid, but by the middle-class. It stated that 80 per cent of Indian households will be middle-income and will drive 75 per cent of consumer spending. There is need to boost our immune systems, especially in the wake of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Medicines can’t fix our immune systems; our lifestyle and what we eat will only help. Several new initiatives such as Eat Right and Smart Food have enhanced demand for healthier and nutritious foods. India is a nutri-basket of nutri-dense plant-based foods. We need to ensure these are safe, accessible and affordable to all. Even before the present pandemic, demand for natural and organic products in India was on the rise. Availability of organic food stuff and products grown under natural systems (of agriculture) has increased manifold. This is manifested by very steep growth in market share of natural (and ayurvedic) products and a corresponding alignment to the trend by competing with multinational companies. The general observation is that the aspirational consumers are going back to nature and natural products to live healthier and longer

Valorization of peanut shells through biochar production using slow and fast pyrolysis and its detailed physicochemical characterization

Valorization of peanut shells has recently gained prominence in the context of thermally converting agricultural waste into biochar, a carbon-rich byproduct with significant potential as a soil amendment. The present study delves into understanding the influence of slow (450°C and 500°C) and fast (550°C and 600°C) pyrolysis temperatures with a resident time of 60 and 30 minutes, respectively, on the physico-chemical properties of peanut shell biochar produced in a low-cost kiln. Results of the Scanning Electron Microscopy analysis revealed that increased pyrolysis temperature increased porosity and surface roughness with crystalline deposits. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that increased temperatures contributed to enhanced thermal stability but reduced biochar yield. Pyrolysis temperatures of 450, 500, 550, and 600°C exhibited 32.19, 29.13, 21.8, and 19.43 percent conversion efficiency with organic carbon content of 11.57, 6.48, 8.64, and 7.76 percent, respectively. The intensities of functional groups (C-H and C-O) declined, whereas the intensity of C=C and stable carbon content increased with the rise in temperatures. The concentrations of heavy metals in all biochar samples were below permissible limits outlined by international biochar initiatives. The study concluded that slow pyrolysis at 450°C for 60 minutes resident time is an ideal pyrolytic condition for producing peanut shell biochar in terms of qualitative and quantitative characteristics

Crop Advances Feed Economic Gains

The contribution of agriculture to Odisha’s economy has increased significantly, according to its latest economic survey (2019-20), which shows that about 20% of the state’s revenue comes from crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture. While ‘natural shocks’ interrupted crop production — a cyclone in 2013-14, drought in 2015-16 and pest attacks in 2017- 18 — the growth in livestock and fisheries has risen steadily for a decade. The state’s Agriculture Policy 2020 indicated the sector’s GDP nearly doubled in real terms, clocking an annual growth rate of about 4.5%, higher than the all-India average of 3.1% between 2000-01 and 2016-17. Odisha’s agricultural success can be traced back to a legacy of scientific exploration and interventions