Context: Earth Day observed annually on April 22 since 1970, marked by millions supporting environmental conservation.
Agriculture and Sustainability
- Earth day originated in the US under Senator Gaylord Nelson's leadership due to concerns about environmental damage from rapid development.
- Over 50 years later, numerous COPs were held, including COP 28 in Dubai (Nov-Dec 2023) where agriculture was included.
- For the first time, agriculture was brought into this agreement.
- But India did not sign it, unlike most G20 countries like the US, and China.
- The reason behind India not signing it was that the government thought it would involve significant changes in agricultural policies and farming practices.
Challenges in Environmental Sustainability
- Rising human population's demand for food contributes to biodiversity loss.
- It took homo sapiens more than 2,00,000 years to become one billion in 1804. But the next billion was added in just 123 years by 1927.
- And now, within less than 100 years, humanity has multiplied from two billion to more than eight billion.
- As Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, once said, this planet can four billion people at the most on its own.
- If science had not come to rescue the situation, many would have starved to death.
- Green Revolution increased food production but led to environmental consequences.
- In fact, as per FAO, 30 per cent of the food produced never reaches our stomachs due to high food losses in the journey from harvest to retail and high waste at the consumer end.
- To ensure that people do not die of hunger, each country has to devise its own policies.
- India has the largest food subsidy programme in the world, the PM-Garib Kalyan Yojana, under which 813 million people get free rice/wheat.
Policy Challenges
- The policy of heavily subsidising the use of chemical fertilisers, especially urea, has led to skewed use of nitrogen (N), phosphate (P) and potash (K).
- The soils have been damaged and are starving for organic carbon.
- The optimal level of soil organic carbon (SOC) as per the World Food Laureate, Rattan Lal, should be between 1.5 to 2 per cent.
- The reality of Indian soils, however, is that more than 60 per cent have SOC of less than 0.5 per cent.
- Our soils are literally in the ICU, but our policymakers appear to be blind to it.
Suggestions to reform policies
- A simple directional change from heavily subsidising the pricing of N, P and K to direct income transfer to farmers and then letting the prices of N, P and K be decided by the market forces can change a lot.
- But this needs advance preparations in terms of land records of farmers, the crops they are growing, irrigation, etc.
Groundwater depletion
- In Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, the situation is particularly serious, largely because free power for irrigation, minimum support prices and open-ended procurement of paddy (rice) have encouraged rampant groundwater exploitation.
- All this has led to an ecological disaster in this belt with the water table receding year by year, and paddy fields emitting carbon at the rate of almost 5 tons/ha.
Reduced Crop Diversity
- Focus on rice cultivation in Punjab displaces other crops, reducing crop diversity.
- For example, in 1960 in Punjab, only 4.8 per cent of the cropped area was under rice. Today, it is more than 40 per cent, displacing maize, millets, pulses and many oilseeds. Successful high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat also lead to loss of varietal diversity.
Urgent need for policies balancing agricultural productivity with environmental sustainability. Climate change and extreme weather events require resilient food systems and environmental conservation efforts. Call to action to prioritize planet-positive policies to safeguard future generations.