Representative image
India needs a second green revolution along with the next generation of reforms with a view to make agriculture more climate-resistant and environmentally sustainable, said an RBI article on farm sector challenges. Observing that Indian agriculture has exhibited remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 period, the article said “new emerging challenges warrant a second green revolution along with next-generation reforms”.
Despite the success in terms of production that has ensured food security in the country, food inflation and its volatility remain a challenge, which requires supply-side interventions such as higher public investment, storage infrastructure and promotion of food processing, said the article titled ‘Indian Agriculture: Achievements and Challenges’. The article said Indian agriculture scaled new heights with record production of various foodgrains, commercial and horticultural crops, exhibiting resilience and ensuring food security during the COVID-19 period.
ALSO READ: RBI imposes monetary penalty on The Co-operative Bank of Rajkot
“The sector, however, confronted various challenges, mitigation of which requires a holistic policy approach,” it said. For instance, crop productivity in India is much lower than other advanced and emerging market economies due to various factors, like fragmented landholdings, lower farm mechanisation and lower public and private investment in agriculture.
Second, the article said the current overproduction of crops like rice, wheat and sugarcane, has led to rapid depletion of the ground-water table, soil degradation and massive air pollution raising questions about the environmental sustainability of current agricultural practices in India. Also, despite surplus production in many of the commodities, food inflation and volatility in prices continue to remain high causing inconvenience to consumers and low and fluctuating income for farmers.
COVID-19 Vaccine
Frequently Asked Questions
A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.
There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.
Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.
“Addressing these challenges would require a second green revolution focussed on the agriculture water-energy nexus, making agriculture more climate resistant and environmentally sustainable. The use of biotechnology and breeding will be important in developing eco-friendly, disease-resistant, climate-resilient, more nutritious and diversified crop varieties,” it said. Wider use of digital technology and extension services will be helpful in information sharing and generating awareness among the farmers.
It also stressed that better post-harvest loss-management and a revamp of co-operative movement through the formation of farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) can arrest the volatility in food prices and farmers’ income and help harness the true potential of Indian agriculture.
- Not Easy Being Green: Hot Topic of Climate Investing
- A BCG exec says the same CEOs who used to resist sustainability are changing their tune after seeing the numbers
- We Need To Talk About Palm Oil
- The Green Jobs Revolution Needs to Include All of Us
- UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That.
- A Sensible Climate Change Solution, Borrowed From Sweden
- Climate Change Is Already Reshaping How We Farm
- The Other Kind of Climate Denialism
- How Black Lives Matter to the Green New Deal
- A Green New Deal Revisited!
- The Green New Deal Rises Again
- Jay Inslee Wants to Be a Presidential Candidate for the Climate-Change Era
- If Not the Green New Deal, Then What?
- In LA, Climate Change Gentrification Is Already Happening
- Break the law to make the law: Importance of protest for climate justice
- We Face A Crisis Bigger Than Climate Change, But We're Not Talking About It
- Is a Green New Deal Possible Without a Revolution?
- How Pope Francis Came to Embrace Not Just Climate Justice but Liberation Theology
- The Cautious Case for Climate Optimism (From a Climate Alarmist)
- Climate change is a form of terror
India needs Green Revolution 2.0 to make agri more climate-resistant, sustainable: RBI have 829 words, post on www.moneycontrol.com at January 17, 2022. This is cached page on Business News. If you want remove this page, please contact us.