While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday the country was close to achieving 3.5 per cent growth rate in the farm sector “but could, and should, do more,” eminent agriculture scientist and Rajya Sabha member M.S. Swaminathan pointed out that farmers' enthusiasm today “was not in good shape and needed to be revived.”
Dr. Singh was speaking to a distinguished gathering after releasing a book of essays on agriculture — From Green to Evergreen Revolution - Indian Agriculture: Performance and Challenges — by Dr. Swaminathan.
The Prime Minister said the country was close to achieving an agriculture growth rate of nearly 3.5 per cent this year despite the challenge of food inflation, as against a “long term average of no more than 2 per cent.”
A Core Group of Central Ministers and Chief Ministers had been set up to deal with the rise in prices of essential commodities and address the issue “without hurting agriculture growth.”
He lauded the role of Dr. Swaminathan in ushering in the Green Revolution and contributing to the processes of nation building. “Our agriculture owes a deep sense of gratitude to him.”
Dr. Swaminathan highlighted the four pillars of agriculture growth as — technology, services, public policy and farmers' enthusiasm. “When the hybrid wheat variety was introduced, Punjab farmers took to it like fish to water and demanded a ‘triple hybrid' variety. Such was their enthusiasm. But farmers' enthusiasm today is not in very good shape and needs to be revived.”
“Scientists can develop a technology, but whether it reaches farmers will depend on public policy,” he pointed out, while recalling his association with the former Ministers, C. Subramanian and Jagjivan Ram, who rose to the occasion several times to help farmers at critical times of political and social evolution.
Dr. Swaminathan profusely thanked N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu , and “The Hindu family” for giving him permission to publish articles in his book from the annual agriculture review that the newspaper brings out.
The book has been published by Academic Foundation.
