"SEC | S20W4: "ROLE OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ECONOMY"

a. Explain the social and industrial roles of agriculture in your country, sighting one of the main grown crop.

India in the Green Revolution which happens in the 1960s achieved food self-sufficiency it was a government program to focus on Modern seeds, modern crop protection modern agricultural mechanization to make India food self-sufficient.

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b. How has this main grown agriproduct helped in reducing poverty and as well promote rural development in your country?

When you look at how many small holders are working in agriculture this number that India actually has half number of the small holders is 1 to two hectare Farms than China. So in India government has focused on land reforms. Land reforms are very very painful for people who have to move around that's not anything an easy policy but you see that India really looked at what role rural Prosperity needs to play, focus on making agricultural Technologies available to small holders with global, with governmental support.

c. What are the main challenges facing your country's top crops (e.g., cocoa, palm, maize, wheat, rice, etc.) in terms of economic impact?

I'm pretty sure we'll talk more about that more sustainable agricultural systems here this is all about cropping systems how can you grow wheat over corn over crops agriculture in an economic way so there is an academic approach to it but there needs to be an approach to make farmer sure that they can do this transformation economically what is the advice we can give and certainly we use these map centers we have to also then accelerate the adoption of these farming practices.

d. What current or past government initiatives are boosting agricultural productivity in your country?"

We have at the moment about 1.7 million small holders connected to Farma service centre and you see a a variety of different agronomic supports tools. I pick out here for example the crop doctor crops get diseases they're infected by fungi they are attacked by insects we can predict these waves like in any pandemic. You can predict when the disease waves come when is a good to treat or not to treat that you don't over invest you don't overuse the pesticides but you use the right one at the very right moment with the right level of precision so also these are solutions to bridge. The Last Mile to reach the farmer with modern technology that they can accelerate yield increase and not use more land new technologies very very important the world moves.

e. What solutions can enhance agricultural productivity and growth in your country?

The weather extremes our country sees more and more heat waves it was the hottest ever July in India. this year we see extremely volatile weather patterns from which Farmers suffer in India this leads to more torrential rainfalls during monsoon.

Technological answer to these challenges are different so you need different Technologies different ways how to still Harvest something meaningful from that cropland in all weather situation.

Farma service centers need to be digitalized where we provide input products but also digital Solutions how to use these products in the most efficient and sustainable way and you can see what we can measure on the farms we work with in terms of yield increase and income increase because this needs to go hand in hand.

What water savings can be done what carbon savings can be done on those Farms what fertilizer savings, pesticide savings can come along when they help small holder Farmers to adopt different methodologies.

One Timrium technology which can reduce fungicide applications by a can reduce fungicide applications by a factor of 100 so this is really pesticides are needed. It's unfortunate we would love to have a world without pesticides and they are needed but they can be done much better with modern technology and this is one of these examples and this is a solution to a new disease and we see new diseases developing constantly unfortunately which impact farmers's yield so this is also part of the answer to accelerate technological innovation. We need to bring in new solutions for new problem.

It's urgent it's it's really really urgent there is not one food system the climatic zones are different the crops which are growing are very very different we have large scale Agro Holdings with hundred thousands of hector. We have small holders with two hectar they all need different solutions we need government we need Academia we need industry we need the finance system the insurance system in able to drive this transformation forward even stronger and even faster so I'm really looking forward for learning more and for the discussion later on thank you.

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