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Thursday, Mar 17, 2005

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Greater attention needed on agriculture: Borlaug

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 16. Nobel Laureate, Norman E. Borlaug, today stressed the need for greater attention to agriculture, contrasting the low priority accorded to the sector with military budgets.

Delivering the Coromandel Lecture instituted by the Hyderabad-based Coromandel Fertilizers here, he said in 2000 international support to agriculture had reached the lowest level though it had improved ``modestly'' thereafter.

He put his hope on the gene revolution in the 21st century to double food supply by 2050 to banish hunger from the world.

``You cannot build peace on empty stomachs,'' he said, quoting the first Food and Agriculture Organisation Chief, John Boyd Orr.

On the occasion he also presented the Borlaug Awards instituted by the company to the Director of Indian Agriculture Research Institute, S. Nagarajan, and the Professor of Soil Sciences in Ohio State University, Rattan Lal.

Speaking on the theme of `From Green Revolution to Gene Revolution', he recalled the Green Revolution in India of the 1960s with which he was associated along with M.S. Swaminathan.

He said 85 per cent of the future growth in food production must come from land already in production. There was limited potential for expansion except in Americas and sub-Saharan Africa.

According to him, irrigation and fertilizer nutrient would remain crucial to meet the food demand with use of zero till farming, bed planting and integrated soil management.

His biotechnology dreams were that the immunity of rice to rusts should be transferred to other cereals like wheat, maize, sorghum, barley and the bread wheat's proteins for making superior dough should be transferred to other cereals, especially to rice and maize.

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