Sustainable agriculture is about growing enough food to sustain the current generation by adopting practices that use land, water and other resources in a way that makes it possible for farmland to also meet the food demand of future generations
India’s farmers have never had it tougher. Climate change, erratic and unseasonal weather, the growing demand for food and stressed resources are all placing an unprecedentedly heavy burden on them and their farmlands.
This burden has begun taking a toll. Farm productivity, even of some of our most key crops, has been falling.
India’s rice output, for example, is set for its first decline in eight years in 2023/24 on account of below average and inconsistent rainfall during the most recent monsoon. Similarly, the forecasts for record wheat production this year, reversing two years of declines, are also in jeopardy due to untimely rainfall and hailstorms.
Other crops have been similarly affected.
Falling farm productivity poses a threat to our hard-won food security. Crucially, it comes at a time when we need our farmlands to produce more food than ever before.
To put it simply - India’s farmlands need another revolution.
Sustainable agriculture could hold the key to unlocking it.
Sustainable agriculture, as the name suggests, is about growing enough food to sustain the current generation by adopting practices that use land, water and other resources in a way that makes it possible for farmland to also meet the food demand of future generations.
Where the Green Revolution - which paved the way for India to become food secure in the first place, was resource intensive, the Sustainable Agriculture Revolution, which will need to safeguard our country’s food security, will have to be resource responsible.
Being resource responsible means adopting certain climate smart practices, which new-age technology like the use of drones, satellites, sensor-based Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) is making possible.
Climate-smart practices encompass everything from crop nutrition and protection to irrigation, crop rotation, and intercropping.
They include, for instance, planning nutritional interventions, with technology giving farmers information on not just what product to use but how much of it to use and at which stage of the crop’s growth.
They include determining the crop’s exact water needs and delivering exactly that amount, which helps conserve water.
They also include determining crop protection needs so that the fields are not over-fertilised and crop protection products are used optimally and responsibly.
These practices together will not only result in higher yields but, together with intercropping and crop protection, also preserve soil health so farmlands stay fertile and can feed people for generations to come.
But, for climate smart practices to be most effective, a collaborative approach involving farmers, the public sector, and the private sector is needed.
While the government's role will be to create an enabling policy environment, the private sector will lead the way in devising innovative solutions.
That innovation is already being unleashed.
(Ashish Dobhal is the CEO of UPL SAS.)