Growing more from less: Stakeholders debate roadmap sustainable agriculture at CII AgroTech 2022
It was the day for farmers and their concerns to be in the spotlight on Friday, as the four-day 15th edition of the CII Agrotech 2022 opened in the city on Friday.
With the globally relevant theme of ‘Digital transformation for sustainable agriculture and food security’, the flavor was putting policies and best-practices in place for sustainable agriculture.
At a special conference on ‘Sustainable Agriculture’, industry experts, researchers, financing agencies and the central government came on a common platform. The broad consensus was that Innovative Farming needed to be the major building block of this transformation.
In his opening remarks that set the context of the session, Mr Mayank Singhal, Chairman, CII Regional Committee on Agriculture, Food Processing & Dairy and Vice Chairman & Managing Director, PI Industries Limited, said, “World food production needs to increase by at least 70% by 2050 to feed the 9 billion population then. Sustainable agriculture is thus a major focus area. The most sustainable approach is to use natural resources combined with technical intervention to make the farming system more resilient to the uncertainties of climate change. This is an apt time to integrate and apply agro-meteorological data via ICT systems for climate-resilient agriculture.”
Mr Rajesh Srivastava, Chairman and Managing Director, Rabo Equity Advisors, and Chairman, Prowess Advisors, said changing consumer demand, like food habits, has a direct bearing on farming. Raising a demand from the central government, he added, “Agriculture waste management like the disposal of stubble needs to be covered under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) norms for corporates.” He also announced that a special purpose body, Biomass India, had been set up with collaboration from the Dutch government and would soon scale up its activities.
Mr Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India, said technology was the way to go for sustainable agriculture, with technology functioning as something powered from outside the farming ecosystem.
Mr Prabhakar Lingareddy, Executive Vice President & Head – Social Investments, ITC Limited, said, “Sustainable agriculture is dependent on how DIVINE the intervention is. In D, we need diversification, then the farmer needs to be Institution Smart, and have Variety in his approach, develop Insights on market demand, be Nature smart and finally be Smarter in his use of energy.”
Dr Ajmer Singh Dhatt, Director, Research, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), said, “We need to improve our cropping patterns and control early sowing rice varieties. In the case of Punjab, the growing of early-sowing rice is like exporting water.”
In the special session on technological innovations for sustainable climate resilient agriculture, session chair Mr Ajai Rana, MD, Savannah Seed Pvt, Ltd, “The challenge today is to grow more from less, as urbanization is eating up arable land.”
Mr Raju Kapoor, Director, Public and Industry Affairs, FMC India Pvt Limited, said, “Even by a conservative estimate, we lose Rs 2 lakh crore worth of agriculture output (produce) to pests. This needs to be controlled.”
Mr Michiel Van Erkel, Agriculture Counselor in the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands shared his views from a global standpoint. He said, “We have to put together the knowledge that we have to overcome the global challenge to institutionalize mere problems such as fair income to farmers, rise in productivity, food waste, storage and transportation.”
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At a parallel session, which farmers thronged to, Mr Sachin Sharma, vice-president, channel & dairy operations, ITC, said the company was working on next generation agriculture technology that focuses on climate smart farming and regenerative agriculture.
Dr Vishal Bector, Associate Director, PAU, moderated the session.
Concluding the session, Director of Extension Education, Dr. Ashok Kumar, Director of Extension Education, Punjab Agriculture University, said “I think farmers must try new crops in a small piece of land before switching to the same on a larger area. Water for irrigation is a problem in Punjab, let’s focus on sustainable crops.”
