Technology, infrastructure key to 'second green revolution': Experts

MUMBAI: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi lending currency to 'second green revolution', experts feel that technology intervention and improvement in infrastructure are key to higher agricultural production.

"Conventional cultivation will not be able to meet the food demand of our growing population. Shrinking land, declining water level, environmental problem can only be addressed through technology intervention. This is where biotechnology, genetically modified (GM) crops and marker assisted breeding technology will help," G Padmanaban of Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, told PTI here.

He said statistics of the last three years showed that the yield has declined and the rate of population growth is faster than the agriculture growth.

India is going to exceed China in population growth in 15-20 years and reach 1.6 billion by 2030, he predicted.

He was also of the view that green revolution and technology use should not be region-specific.

"Technology should be used across the country, but the variety of the crops should be region-specific, depending on the soil condition of that region," he added.

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Director Dr K C Bansal couldn't agree more. He said the 'second green revolution' is essentially required to meet the growing demand of people both due to increase in population and income levels.

Biotechnology, he felt, has a major role to play in ushering in second green revolution in a sustainable way and this could be termed as 'green green revolution'.

"With the advent of modern tools of biotechnology, it has become possible to address those challenges of agriculture like climate change, control of pests or malnutrition, which have been difficult to be overcome by conventional plant breeding methods.

"Globally, GM crop technology has fuelled development of transgenic crops with traits such as resistance to insects, herbicides and enhanced nutritional quality in several crops," he added.