will soon be the first country in the world “to enact a food security
entitlement act under which every family below the poverty line will get
35 kg of grain”, says M.S. Swaminathan who is in Canada to receive an
honorary doctorate from the University of Alberta.
One of the pioneers
of the Green Revolution in India, Swaminathan said India cannot depend
on volatile global markets to ensure its food security and it will have
to ramp up its own output.
Swaminathan will receive the honorary doctorate for his contribution to food security in the world.
“India needs an
ever-green revolution which means increasing productivity in perpetuity
with no impact on ecology. It means increase in production through
productivity improvement as land is shrinking and water getting scarce,”
Swaminathan told IANS Wednesday.
“The country will
have to use cutting-edge technology – remote sensing, the internet,
cable and phone networks – to increase farm production and incomes. Our
manufacturing, IT and other sectors may be growing very fast, but it
will all be meaningless if the farming sector doesn’t grow fast,” said
the renowned scientist, who has been named one of the most important
Asians of the 20th century by Time magazine.
Since the Indian
farming sector is the largest private enterprise in the world employing
about 60 percent of its population, he said he was happy that the
government was paying huge attention to this sector through legislation
and high-end technology.
“In fact, India is
soon becoming the first country in the world to enact a food security
entitlement act under which every family below the poverty line will get
35 kg of grain. Thus, 45 percent of Indians will get wheat at Rs.2 per
kg and rice Rs.3 per kg,” said Swaminathan, who is helping formulate the
bill to be introduced in the next parliamentary session.
Described as “the
father of economic ecology” by the UN Environment Programme, Swaminathan
said: “India cannot depend on the global market to feed our 1.2 billion
people. This year, Russia banned export of wheat for its needs. So what
do we do? India has no option but to depend on its home-grown food.”
Since India is
notorious for its food and horticulture wastage owing to lack of cold
storage facilities, he said: “I have recommended a national grid of 50
ultra-modern grain stores, each with a capacity of one million tonnes.
The government is trying to rope in the private sector for this task.”