The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : ICRISAT for more public investment in dry-land agriculture

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

ICRISAT for more public investment in dry-land agriculture

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, FEB. 22. According to a recent study conducted by ICRISAT on Andhra Pradesh, the Government subsidy to irrigated land works out to US $ 300 per hectare while the subsidy on rain-fed agricultural land totals a measly US $ 22 per hectare.

"We need much greater public investment in dry-land agriculture if food security is to be achieved," said ICRISAT Director General, William D. Dar at the concluding session of the three-day meeting of WWF's Global Freshwater Programme here on Tuesday. "They are giving peanuts to the peanut and other dry-land crop farmers," he said with a play on words.

S.P. Wani, ICRISAT Principal Scientist, said only 20 per cent of the agricultural land is irrigated but produces 40 per cent of the total crops.

But with proper natural resource management productivity in the non-irrigated, rain-fed areas can be doubled and even quadrupled.

This would not only provide food security to the millions of poor farmers living in these areas but also reduce the demands on irrigation infrastructure, he argued.

Not sustainable

The traditional model of Green Revolution based on high water-consuming, high yielding varieties was not sustainable as it required ever greater quantities of fertiliser and water to maintain its yield.

The former Union Minister, Y.K. Alagh, who spoke about the experiences of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river, argued against taking any uniform position for or against big dams.

He said such judgements should be based on the particular project. While he supported the `original' Sardar Sarovar dam, he said that the Tehri dam or the proposed Ken-Betwa project were faulty. Jason Clay of the WWF, Madar Samad, of the International Water Management Institute and Jay O'Keeffe, professor on water issues from Netherlands spoke at the session. Over 80 delegates from over 30 countries have been attending this annual meeting of the WWF.

They are slated to visit the Tiger Reserve and water works near Srisailam on Wednesday.

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