WE THE PEOPLE
Chemical farming hazards, low water availability, pollution and environmental concerns impede our agricultural development
Hence refined technology, participatory research and educational modules are needed to improve productivity in J&K
By: Dr G.M. Wani
Srinagar: Higher productivity gains can be achieved through application of technology and production recommendations at farmer’s field. We have 65% small and marginal farmers whose awareness potential is low. The production system prevailing with these farmers is a mixed farming or composite farming. In contrast to USA and European agriculture our necessity is to increase “Crop opportunities”. A mixed Agriculture University and Education set ups is our necessity. We are at present going astray to our need. Quick and fast measures are needed to unify our educational system, involving all agriculture and allied disciplines, industries, corporate sectors and farmers’ institutions.
It is worth mentioning that Indian Agricultural pride years of green revolution post 1968 saw reduction in food gain imports and subsequently white, blue and other revolutions sustained our population pressures and agriculture growth. Our agricultural growth rate needs to be equal if not more to population growth rate (PGR). Our AGR target ought to be double the PGR. This is important as consumption rates, purchasing power and employment prospects increase. An estimated food grain of 210 million tons at present may need to be doubled in next 10 years. We have to achieve high targets of productivity by vertical expansion as horizontal land expansion target of 4 t/h. Likewise production of 100 million tones of wheat from 25 million hectares needs a productivity of 4t/hac. Our aim to double our per hectare productivity needs more technical manpower in extension, industry and at gross root level. The climate disasters, earthquakes, Titanic tsunami, floods; have effected our agricultural production in the past and additional requirements needs to be kept in mind while planning food security. We need to increase per capita consumption expenditures of Rs. 600 per month. We need to bridge the gaps between potential and actual yields at farmers’ level. The chemical farming hazards of poor soil fertility, low water availability, pollution and environmental concerns impede our agricultural development. Thus refined technology, participatory research and educational modules are needed. The new pressures of global marketing. World trade and tariff regulations have to be accommodated. This all will need incorporation of new themes like post-harvest management, value addition, packaging, communication, credit and market information services in our course curricula. Thus a new multidimensional change in academic curriculum is envisaged.
“We feel pride in calling ourselves as the 2nd largest Agricultural Research System (ARS) in the world. When we review our performance, we are nowhere in top ten of most cited agriculture publications in the world. The USA tops the world list with 3,62,79,842 cited publication/annum, with small country like Switzerland at No.10. The scientific output in agriculture is highest in USA with 27 lakh publication/year followed by Japan, Germany, U.K, France, Canada, Italy, Russia, China and Australia. Our contribution to Agriculture publication is 5.48% only with our share of citation at 2.32%. This demands more focus on Quality Assurance. Our prime agenda should be quality, Accreditation, Desired Knowledge, Assessment, Skill and competence building and academic audit. Quality assurance means strengthening resources, information and maintenance of educational infrastructure. Thus we need to regulate grants and Centre-State relations rationally,” said a group of experts associated with the author of this report.
We have Central Agricultural Universities and 200 general Universities, with 48 agricultural faculties. The total disciplines needing grants may be strengthened in 5 yrs by 1core grants to each discipline for quality assurance. We produce 10,000 under graduate, 5500 post graduates and 1600 Ph.D. in agriculture every years. They add to our unemployment pool. For making them self-employees in new ventures and for increased employment, they need competence building in global economics and trade policies. Biotechnology, Bioinformation, Biofertilizers, Pesticides and Fungicides. New faculty development in all the Universities and colleges is to be executed in coming 5 years. Such as Pest information and survey; management Analysis; decision support system and Geographic information system. A new trust is to be given to course curriculum integrating field practices in a partnership mode with farmer. A teacher-student-farmer-industry, interaction and co-operation is to be integrated, unified and fine-tuned to end results. This will demand inter and inter faculty harmony and synchronized course curricula at UG, PG and Ph.d level. This has to be fine-tuned to our field requirements and location orientations.
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