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‘Evergreen revolution needed’

HYDERABAD: Agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan on Friday called for an evergreen revolution to improve the crop yield a hectare to create food security in perpetuity. However, this should be done without an associated ecological harm. “This is where space technology acquires importance,” he said.

Addressing the plenary of the International Astronautical Congress here on Space technology for poverty alleviation, Dr. Swaminathan said minimum fertilizers and pesticides and genetically modified crops were used in evergreen revolution. Space technology played an important role in boosting food productivity.

The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, of which he is the chairman, with the help of the ISRO had done coastal mapping of villages for disaster management. Remote-sensing images showed that mangroves had disappeared in coastal areas of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Bangladesh.

The 2004 tsunami did not affect the villages which had mangroves because the mangroves acted as bioshield.

The former ISRO Chairman, U.R. Rao, said agricultural productivity in developing countries was low. In the African and sub-Sahara countries, it was 1.5 tonnes a hectare. It should reach 4.5 tonnes a hectare for food security. This was a tall task. But space technology could be used to step up food productivity.

Karl Doetsch, chairman of Athena Global, U.S., who spoke on the digital divide and poverty reduction, said the digital divide comprised components such as mobile and land telephone, radio, television, computer and Internet connection. Hence, access to information and computer infrastructure was critically important in bridging the economic divide.

Edward C. Ashford, president of Ashford Aerospace Consulting, U.S., said India, Australia and Indonesia used satellites for broadcasting educational programmes. While the advantages of using satellites included coverage of vast areas with their broadcast beams and unlinking educational programmes from a single site, the disadvantage was that communication transponders and earth observation systems were expensive.

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