10-04-2017, 08:56 PM
Speech of MOS (ST) in the Function Valedictory:
It is a great pleasure for me to be here for the farewell session of this very timely and important Conference on Cooperation for Sustainable Food Security. First of all, I would like to congratulate IFFCO on taking this extraordinary initiative. I think this is the third IFFCO International Conference on this very relevant issue that is drawing global attention today.
The High Level Conference on World Food Security in June 2008 at FAO Rome reiterated that the food situation is deteriorating in the face of increasing challenges of high food prices and climate change variations. The Conference undertook to take immediate, as well as long-term, measures to disseminate the situation. It also committed to improving food security as a matter of national policy.
India and Latin America are facing common prospects and challenges in their efforts to achieve food security. Both regions are mainly agricultural economies where the population depends on the land; Both are endowed with rich biodiversity, fertile land, variable crop patterns and abundant rainfall. But equally, hunger, poverty, declining yields on land, erratic weather patterns and access to capital are common problems. It is therefore natural for our two regions to come together to cooperate and collaborate in meeting our long-term goal of food security.
India is home to almost one-fifth of the world's population. Nearly two-thirds of India's population, nearly 700 million people depend directly on agriculture for their livelihood. But, ironically, the share of agriculture in our national GDP has declined to only about 18%, while the share of other sectors such as manufacturing and services has increased significantly. The Green Revolution of the 1960s had tripled food production and helped our country achieve a food surplus. But after almost three decades since its initial success, the fall in agricultural productivity levels seems to indicate that the Green Revolution has run its course or we have failed to give it the continued attention it deserved. Monsoons, erratic floods and cyclones in our part of the world, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean constantly threaten food production. The decline in farmers' incomes increases their misery and forces them to abandon their farming practices and choose alternative livelihoods, such as workers and construction workers, resulting in migration, a growing urban-rural divide, and the rupture Family ties and the community. In paying tribute to the father of the Green Revolution, Dr. Normal Borlaug, recently deceased in September 2009, I recall here his prophetic words in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize of 1970, thanking the Nobel Committee for its " Insight and Wisdom to recognize the real and potential contributions of agricultural production to prosperity and peace among the nations and peoples of the world. " Even today, almost 40 years from here, this is a vital part of what we continue to strive to achieve.
Therefore, the challenge before us is immense. First, we must focus again on the centrality of agriculture in the development process to address poverty and hunger again. This requires our governments to make conscious efforts to introduce policies that encourage agricultural production. It means greater public investments in agriculture, increase of support and acquisition prices, facilitation of access to credit, including microcredit, laboratory research to land and timely delivery mechanisms. These are not easy solutions and will require political will on the part of governments and greater public awareness.
In the recent past, our government has made tremendous efforts to alleviate the suffering of small and marginal farmers who constitute more than 50% of the farming community. In an extraordinary effort in 2008, the government has given up about Rs. 60 billion of farmers' loans - equivalent to more than $ 12 billion - to small, marginal farmers. Although this is not a small measure, it only provides temporary relief to our farmers. We need new agricultural strategies and technologies to ensure greater agricultural production against water depletion and the decline of arable land.