South Asia faces shrinking arable land, Minister seeks growth in yields through intensive land use
India and the UK must invite global collaborations in various dimensions of science like agriculture, medicine, food, pharma, engineering or defense, said Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science & Technology, at a workshop on 18 Jan 2022.
Also, the India-UK joint collaboration may include programmes like students exchange, basic research, technology development, product development as well as product/process demonstration and their implementation in joint collaboration, he said at the workshop organized jointly by National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI), Mohali, an institute under Department of Biotechnology, and University of Birmingham, UK. It was supported by Newton Bhabha Fund and British Council.
Dwelling on the issue of Sustainable Food Production, Dr Singh said, “The South Asian region is facing the shrinking arable land, besides the problem of global climate change that needs to be addressed.”
Quoting World Bank data, the Minister pointed out that the acreage of Arable land in South Asia has recently been reduced though it has remained stagnant from the 1970s at 43.18% till 2018.
“Growth in yields and more intensive use of land will account for all of the growth in crop production and will also compensate for losses in the arable land area.”
Underlining that the global pattern of food production and distribution may need to shift significantly as climate change progresses, Dr Singh called for joint funding to develop a coherent and stakeholder-relevant R&D program that will address this challenge.
He said noted the British Council initiative to support such interactive meet among the researchers with a common goal will seek attention from the stakeholders and nurture the young investigators to provide them with an excellent platform to share and rear the ideas.
He appreciated that the workshop was meant to bring the scientists across the two countries including 22 outstanding experts in the theme areas from both UK and India, that is, 20 young investigators from both the countries working on a range of important crops in relation to climate change.
The Minister suggested evolving important key areas in agriculture, food and nutrition to be taken by the two countries for joint research plans.
“We know that NABI was established a decade back with the primary focus of improving nutritional quality of foods that reaches to our people across the country,” he highlighted.
NABI is a premier institute that works at the interface of Agri-Food and Nutrition Biotechnology. The institute could provide an impetus to the nations need for addressing nutritional security even under the climatic changes happening around the world. fiinews.com
