Agricultural productivity is important for food security in that it has an impact on food supplies, prices, and the incomes and purchasing power of farmers. Improving food security at the national level requires an increase in the availability of food through increased agricultural production.
Historically, increased food production in the developing countries can be attributed to the cultivation of more land rather than to the deployment of improved farming practices or to the application of new technologies. By its very nature, agriculture threatens other ecosystems, a situation that can be exacerbated by over-cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and bad irrigation practices. However, increased demands for food in Asia, Europe and North Africa have to be met by increasing yields because most land in these areas is already used for agriculture. It is in this scenario that various biotechnology techniques can come handy to be employed to enhance the yield and productivity.
Attaining food security:
Global food productivity is undergoing a process of rapid transformation as a result of technological progress in the fields of communication, information, transport and modern biotechnology. A general observation is that technologies tend to be developed in response to market pressures, and not to the needs of the poor who have no purchasing power. As agriculture is the main economic activity of rural communities, optimizing the levels of production will generate employment and income, and thus uplift the wealth and well-being of the community. Improving agricultural production in developing countries is fundamental to reducing poverty and increasing food security.
Investment to raise agricultural productivity can be achieved through the introduction of superior technologies such as better-quality seeds, crop rotation systems etc, using technologies to reduce crop failure and wastes, producing crops which are resistant to weeds, insects and other reasons for crop failure, using bio insecticides so as to preserve the nutritious values of plants and decrease toxicity. Other such measures would include using techniques which are:
• environmentally sound, preserving resources and maintaining production potential
• profitable for farmers and workable on a long-term basis
• providing food quality and sufficiency for all people
• socially acceptable
• socially equitable, between different countries and within each country
The production problems experienced by farmers vary between countries and communities, and technological solutions need to be relevant to those circumstances, i.e. one solution will not be suitable everywhere. Indeed, such programs are now widely accepted as being at the core of sustainable agriculture. Producing nutritionally enhanced properties in staple crops eaten by the poor could reduce the burden of disease in many developing countries. For example scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, India) have developed a pearl millet variety enhanced with beta-carotene. This has not only resulted in producing a crop which is widely used by the poor with increases productivity but has also added value to the nutrition content of the crop. There is a need to direct research efforts to areas which are able to generate sustainable and long term solutions to food problems and which are not governed by the considerations of only pure commercial interests.
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