The world needs sustainable agriculture

FY 2021 witnessed favourable monsoon resulting in higher acreages and growth of Sustainable Solutions in India. 2020 was incredibly difficult for India and the rest of the world as well.

As the pandemic spread like wildfire and claimed a ghastly toll on human life and livelihoods, global economic activity contracted significantly. Just as there were visible signs of recovery, a fierce second wave put paid to hopes of an early return to pre-Covid level economic activity.

Indian farmers are facing mounting challenges and sustainability may not be top-of-mind priority for them, as they work towards ending the year with a profit.

Sustainability issue of a farmer

Sustainability for a farmer becomes attractive only when it reduces their risks, costs and helps secure and strengthen profitability.

In the covid world, this is an urgent need to focused on developing technologies that are aimed at protecting farmer incomes, while reducing the environment impact of farming and making the food supply more sustainable, as part of India reimagining sustainability vision, and creating a win-win for all participants of agriculture ecosystem.

Scarcity of natural resources

Burgeoning population and the scarcity of natural resources and arable land are major risks facing the world.

The world requires sustainable solutions and technologies to extract more out of the land with less use of water, energy, chemicals, leading to lower carbon footprint and food wastage.

While there are significant food security challenges, getting a healthy and nutritious diet is even more difficult for a large proportion of the world’s population.

More than 17 people die from hunger every minute, while 1 in 11 people globally suffer from food insecurity and 2-3 people in every 7 are malnourished. To add to this, the world will have 25% more people by 2050, increasing food demand by over 50% as compared with 2010. Transformation of the entire food ecosystem is therefore required with the intervention of technology and high-end analytics.

Agriculture and climate change

Agriculture is a major consumer of the world’s resources ‒ more than 40% of the earth’s terrestrial surface is used for agriculture, and 70% of freshwater is used for irrigation. By adopting a climate smart agriculture system, we can mitigate the effects caused by climate variability. This includes developing resilient varieties of crops which can withstand abrupt stresses of temperature and precipitation, implementing biotic and sustainable agricultural methods and use of innovative solutions including BioSolutions. This will result in reduced emission of GHG and decrease in levels of soil, water and air pollution.

Agriculture and greenhouse gas emission

Agriculture is one of the key contributors to global greenhouse gas emission. Cumulative human emissions since 1750 is 675 GT of which 25% has been contributed by agriculture. Sustainable agriculture can transform agricultural land into carbon sinks with a potential to restore 500 GT back into the soils.

Water shortage impact on agriculture

It is estimated around 1.2 billion people live in areas where severe water shortages and scarcity challenge agriculture, with very high drought frequency in rainfed cropland and pastureland areas or very high-water stress in irrigated areas. This implies that about one out-of-six people on the planet faces severe water shortages or scarcity in agriculture, with about 15% of the rural population being at risk. It requires innovative technology to enhance agricultural output in water stressed conditions and conserve resources.

(India CSR Research)