Hyderabad: Minister Niranjan Reddy pitches for radical changes in farming methods

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy has called for revolutionary changes in the agriculture sector, existing practices, rural economy and management of natural resources to face the challenges of the food shortage in future.

Addressing at Digital AG India conference here on Tuesday, the Minister said that new innovations in the agriculture and food sectors are the need of the hour.

Reminding the call given by the United Nations for achieving a stable food secured world by 2030 by bringing revolutionary changes in the food security, he said the world population would cross 9.6 billion by 2050. There will be a huge demand for food but the natural resources like water and land are also scarce.

Against this backdrop there is an urgent need to focus more on the increase in productivity, he said. This aspect needs to be given attention as the growing urbanization and the consumption patterns will impact on the food production and agriculture sectors, he pointed out.

Niranjan Reddy said that nearly 28 per cent of the world population, 570 million small and medium farmers are dependent on the agriculture and food sectors.

The Agriculture sector has faced several challenges in the past and it has come to the present state. But there is an urgent need to herald another revolution using the new and emerging technologies unveiled across the world in the field of agriculture and food production.

The Minister said that mobile, remote sensing, computers are helping and useful to some extent in the Agriculture sector. Since mobile phones are being used extensively, the same should be used in the agriculture sector to extend services to various stake holders like farmers, Niranjan Reddy said.

Professor Jayashanker Telangana State Agriculture University, Vice-Chancellor, Dr Praveen Rao, ITC director Siva Kumar, Indian School of Business, Prof Aswani Chathre and others participated in the conference.