Swaminathan wants the land acquisition law to classify good farm as special agricultural zone

NEW DELHI: Agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan wants the land acquisition law to strictly classify all good farm land as special agricultural zone, especially in the nation’s grain bowl of Punjab and Haryana. “For the Land Acquisition Bill to represent a win-win situation for both farm families and for land acquiring agencies, it should not erode national food security,” said the scientist who is known as the father of green revolution in India. Public good should be clearly defined in the law and “land should only be acquired for public good and not for private profit”, he told ET.

“Land Acquisition should be carried out in full consultation with farm men and women. Consultation with women is particularly important since they are the custodians of household food security,” he said. Recently he wrote to Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh about crop loss due to unseasonal rains. “It is time for policies to help farmers both in good and bad times,” he said. The measures he suggests for the short term include incentives for combined harvesting and grain drying to rid grains of mycotoxins, use of community nurseries to grow seedling for Satti (short-term) rice as water tables are high at the moment, and encouragement to grow short-duration varieties of rice, maize and millets to beat unpredictable weather due to environmental degradation.