Agriculture security: How to attain it

Abstract

This article emphasizes the virtual synonimity of agriculture security, food security, farmers’ security, and security of the rural sector, and the importance of ensuring the above to ensure national security.

Operationally, the following components of agriculture security have been identified: seeds; agrochemicals; water and power; soil; agricultural practices (traditional and modern); de juro / de facto empowerment of Panchayats; marketing of agro-products at fair / remunerative prices, other sources of augmentation of income of agriculturists and village dwellers (such as traditional arts and crafts, medicinal plants, plants producing biodiesel, fruits and vegetables, organic farming, post-harvest technologies, intelligent energy use, animal husbandry, fisheries and marine wealth, and orchid tissue culture); knowledge empowerment of the rural sector (both long-term through formal school education, and short-term through knowledge packages for Panchayats); loans, e.g. through microcredit; integration of rural and urban sectors, e.g. through roads, communication, appropriate industry, and medical and healthcare; policy, e.g. effective administration of NREGS; research and extension; external threats; disasters such as flood and famine; cultivable land and land records; bioterrorism; rare, emerging, new and exotic diseases of plants and animals; and climate change.

The current problems the country is facing in each of the above areas are defined and concrete steps suggested to take care of them.

It is recommended that a high-power apex body chaired by the Agriculture Minister should be set up to examine in detail the above recommendations and work out mechanisms to implement those that are found to be worthy of implementation. One of the functions of the proposed apex body should be to put together every year, reliable data on the production (and productivity, for example per person, per animal, per unit land, or per rupee spent, as appropriate) as well as consumption per person, of food, pulses, fruits, vegetables, milk, poultry, marine food, and meat.