Agriculture Through The Prism Of Water

If an elephant fills in 85% of a room, its occupants are unwittingly conditioned to engage only with the little leftover space. Celebrities posing to close a dripping tap reminds me of this situation. If India has to conserve water for future-gen, apart from striving to "Catch-The-Rain", it also has to do effective demand-side management of water. Accounting for 85-89% water usage in India, agriculture, the elephant in the room, is to be specifically targeted for this, not the dripping pipe.

- By Asok Kumar G*

Our farmers thankfully rescued us from the disgraceful USA's PL-480 Food aid charity, by ushering in the Green revolution, producing 340MT of foodgrains in 2024, from 74.7MT in 1959. Our then empty granaries, have now transformed to overflowing food-godowns, with over 3 times annual food-grain requirement procured and stored, a lot of which are getting degraded or eaten by bandicoots. India now accounts for a third of global rice exports, even after giving its 80-crore people free foodgrains under government schemes for the last 5 years, since Covid. With more income & high health awareness, increased urbanisation, our dietary patterns & palate preferences have changed. Galloping diabetics have cut our cereal intake. Our plates now offer a smorgasbord of horticulture, proteins and breads. Yet, our cropping patterns have not changed.