Prasanta Misra
Joint Secretary (NCPAH)
New Delhi
A robust and sustainable economic
growth depends on agricultural
sector keeping pace
with industrial growth – as 65% of India
lives in rural areas and is agriculture
dependent.
Over the years, there had been appreciable
difference between the overall
growth and the sectoral growth in
agriculture and allied areas. In fact, agricultural
growth has remained almost
stagnant – varying from 1.8% to 3.0%.
Since bulk of rural India depends on
agricultural and allied sector, the benefits
of economic growth has not
touched a large part of Indian population.
One of the primary reasons for slow
growth in agriculture in India is our failure
to infuse modern technology in this
sector, resulting in phenomenal productivity
gap between us and other developed
economies. The initial gains of
green revolution were fettered away by
lack of uniformity in agricultural technology
adoption in the country. Even in
the agriculturally advanced states within
India – development is confined to only
a few pockets.
While the present situation is not
very encouraging, the silver lining is that
there exists tremendous untapped potential
which can transform India into an
agricultural power and supply hub for
food across the world. Areas which can
achieve high growth in the coming years
are in production of fruits, vegetables,
flowers, dairy and fishery products.
Over past five decades, Indian scientists
have produced fragmented technologies
in almost all areas of agriculture
and allied sectors. All these need
to be pieced together to produce convergent
technologies which can be
adopted for a holistic growth of this sector.
Precision Farming is one such technology
that can provide the base for
growth in the agricultural sector. The
simple definition of precision farming
is the application of all available technologies
in a holistic fashion – to increase
farm income. It embraces the aspects
of production, protection, logistics
as well as marketing.
While precision farming has many
facets, Plasticulture seems to be one
of the most important set of indirect
agricultural input – which is essential
for the development of precision farming
in the country. Plasticulture (Plastics
in Agriculture) – a world coined
by the French Scientists to represent
all applications of plastics in agriculture,
water management and related
areas – has the potential of transform-
....contd.
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