India Needs a Second Green Revolution, Says Indian President Mrs. Patil
With less than a week left before the FAO-organized
High-Level Conference on World Food Security to begin in Rome,
Indian President Mrs. Pratibha Patil urged the Indian authorities
to launch a second green revolution in the spirit of the first
one carried out in the 1960s, the revolution which prevented
large-scale starvation in India and made India food secured.
Prior to President's call, one of the architects of India's
green revolution and a leading plant geneticist, Monkombu
Sambasivan Swaminathan (widely known as MS), warned the Indian
political authorities that unless India produces a second Green
Revolution, India's 1.1 billion people will face huge social
turmoil. Pointing out that so far there has been no sign of major
steps to make that happen, MS said "what we need is political
action; we need politicians to walk the talk."
India's agriculture has been in decline in recent years due
to gross neglect of the powers-that-be, and growing at a far
slower pace than the overall economy. In 2006, India was forced
to import grain for the first time in years, ringing alarm bells
about food security.
The country has updated its services and manufacturing
sectors, which account for around 60 percent of economic output.
But some two-thirds of its population still live off agriculture,
which has attained a growth of about three percent over the last
decade, MS pointed out.
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