Challenges and opportunities for food security in India

Population growth and changing diets are matters of great concern for food security. Changing dietary habits require increasingamounts ofgrain to feed the world's ever-growing population (especially in India and China). This paper discusses the problems of Indian agriculture, the need for a second Green Revolution in India, and the role of new technologies to achieve it. Cell phone technology with site-specific recommendations and services holds tremendous promise and should be more actively exploited. Through cell phones, farmers even in remote areas can receive advice on the most suitable variety to sow, weather forecasts, market prices, fertilizer rates, the timing of irrigation, suitable pesticides, crop insurance, credit, etc. Likewise, advances in genetics and plant breeding, especially genomic selection, offer exciting potential. A diverse range of accessions in global germplasm collections are being genotyped and phenotyped for useful traits that could contribute to heat and drought tolerance, high yield potential, disease and pest resistance, and nutrient use efficiency, among others, as part of major strategic programs such as CIMMYT's Seeds of Discovery. For example, progress is being made to develop wheat varieties with durable resistance to the three rusts and other diseases. Precision conservation agriculture is a third area offering exciting potential. Zero tillage and other conservation agriculture practices are especially beneficial in dry and hot years. For efficient fertilizer use, sensing devices suchas Green Seeker can be used to determine how much nitrogen (and, soon, phosphorus) fertilizer a crop needs at a given moment for optimal productivity. For greater productivity and reduced risk, improved methods and expanded use of irrigation need to be promoted. Tube well irrigation needs to be expanded in much of eastern India. Scarce groundwater in Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana should be reserved for supplementary irrigation on less water demanding crops than rice. Dietary changes, especially increased meat, egg, and dairy consumption are creating demand for more grain, particularly maize, for animal feed. The vegetarian tradition in India has restrained the demand for maize for meat production compared to other rapidly growing economies like China and Mexico, but the demand for eggs and dairy products is growing rapidly. Climate change and natural resource depletion are going to become much more of a problem, especially for wheat. South Asia is one of the regions that will be most severely affected by climate change. This scenario of rising demand and production challenges calls for a second Green Revolution to create a much more sustainable and highly productive future. The Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) is being established in India by CIMMYT, in partnership with ICAR and DARE, to develop cutting-edge agricultural technologies for South Asia and the world.