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News Alerts | Food Security, Sustainability and Copenhagen Summit

Food Security, Sustainability and Copenhagen Summit

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published Published on Nov 14, 2009   modified Modified on Nov 14, 2009


A seminar titled Food Security and Sustainability in India, organized at Amritsar between 7 and 8 November by the GAD Institute of Development Studies, a NGO, at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, brought together government officials, scientists, academicians and NGOs so as to generate discussions and debates surrounding climate change and global warming and their impact on agriculture.

The Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change is going to take place between 7 and 18 December, 2009. As a precursor to this international event of historical importance, social scientists, academicians, agro-scientists from government bodies and civil society organizations, world over, have started working together to analyze the problems related to ecological degradation, unsustainable industrial as well as agricultural practices and loss of biodiversity.

Delivering the inaugural speech Dr. Sunitha Raju of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT, http://www.iift.edu/iift/index.asp), New Delhi said hunger has affected major chunk of the world population in the backdrop of the global financial meltdown. She said that the earlier definition of food security was enough food supply, which got replaced by the notion of access to food by the people during the 1980s. However, having access to food does not always ensure better nutritional outcomes and therefore, she said, it is essential to increase purchasing power by generating livelihood opportunities. She explained how value addition can take place in the agricultural sector. She said that trade policies can help in ensuring food security. She also talked about the role of institutions to provide easy credit and technology to farmers and the right kind of public-private partnership model for agricultural innovations.

Dr. GS Kainth, Director, GAD Institute of Development Studies spoke at length about the current economic, fuel and food crises that India and rest of the world underwent during 2008 and 2009. He discussed the results of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO, www.fao.org) newly released report titled: The State of Food Insecurity in the World Report 2009: Economic Crises-Impacts and Lessons Learnt. He said that food and nutritional security are essential for human development. Food and economic crises affected the employment prospects, he said. The number of hungry people in the world has crossed the 1.02 billion mark. Increasing use of food crops like maize and corn for biofuel production has led to food price inflation and adversely affected the poor consumers, he added.

Delivering the symposium lecture Dr. Golam Rasul of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD, www.icimod.org), Kathmandu, talked on food security and agricultural sustainability from a mountain perspective. He said food has become a political weapon in the densely populated South Asia. He said that the green revolution of 1960s and 1970s increased production and yield but has adversely affected land, water and environment and somehow agricultural dynamism was lost in South Asia. The situation, he said has worsened due to floods, cyclones and natural disasters and countries like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal are still not food secured while food production is erratic in Pakistan.

Dr. RS Bawa, Chairman, Advisory Council, GAD Institute of Development Studies said it is also important that food reaches the poor. However, the government must be extremely cautious about increasing or lowering minimum support prices (MSP) as sometimes it is politically motivated. The public distribution system (PDS) is becoming like a debt trap and so it must be made a short-term measure. The long-term measure is to make the people empowered so that they start earning more. The PDS has become more of a political measure rather than an economic measure. There is also the need to bring in newer technologies for increasing oilseeds and cereals production.              

The seminar was sponsored by ICSSR, NABARD, CSIR and ICAR. Altogether 48 papers were submitted for presentation. Following are some of the papers presented during the seminar:

Towards Sustained Food Security: Food Policy in Post-Reform India by Dr. Nilabja Ghosh, Environment Economics Unit, Institute of Economic Growth (IEG, www.iegindia.org), University of Delhi Enclave, Delhi 110007

Policy Challenges before ‘Shining’ India by Shambhu Ghatak, Inclusive Media for Change (www.im4change.org), Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi

Threatened Food Security in Bihar: Some Empirical Evidences by Dr. RKP Singh, Advisor, State Farmers’ Commission, Pant Bhawan, Patna, Bihar

Sustainable Food Security in India by Dr. Bhaham Prakash and DK Sharma, Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur 208024

Food Security: Some Related Issues by Dr. Arjinder Kaur and Parminder Kaur, Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana

Foods without Plow, Foods Aplenty, Food for All, Food Forever: Opportunities in the Himalayan Mountains by Dr. Vir Singh, Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, GB Pant Agricultural University, Pant Nagar

Global Warming and Food Production by Dr. Surender Mor, Department of Business Administration, D-14, Chowdhury Devi Lal University, Sirsa, Haryana

Organic Farming-A Solution towards Sustainable Agricultural Development: How Sustainable this Option is? by Inderpal Singh, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana

Food Security and Sustainability in Agriculture: Crises and Challenges Today by Archana Sinha, Fellow, Rural Development Unit, Department of Research, Indian Social Institute, 10 Institutional Area, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
 
Crop Diversification and Food Security in Rajasthan by Dr. BL Gajja, Principal Scientist (Agricultural Economics), Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Sustainability of Fisheries Resources and Food Security in India by Dr. SN Singh, Regional Research Centre, Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR), B 12, Hans Society, Harni Road, Vadodara 390022

Food Processing and Value Addition for Sustainable Agriculture and Promotion of Home Based Food Industries by Nirmala Yenagi, Professor and Head, Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, Karnataka

Decontamination of Pesticide Residues from Vegetables for Value Addition by Madhuban Gopal, Division of Agricultural Chemicals, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012

Plant Genetic Resources Management: Sustainable Conservation for Sustainable Use by IS Bisht, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, Pusa Campus, New Delhi 110012

 

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