Hybrid crops: Weapon in times of crisis

Hybrids and GM crops are emerging as a key weapon to fight impact on climate change on agriculture. According to a report, warmer weather can reduce agriculture yield by 2050, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jun 5, 2008, 24:43:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Hybrids and Genetically Modified crops are emerging as a key weapon to fight impact on climate change on agriculture.

India in the last three years has released a number of hybrid varieties of wheat, rice, potato and pearl millet (popularly known as bajra) that can be grown in higher temperatures, consumer less water and are more resistant to pesticide attack.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report has predicted that warmer weather by 2050 can reduce agriculture yield by 30-40 per cent by 2050, creating a major food crises for humans. South Asia, especially India, has been identified as major risk zone for adverse impact of climate change with increase in drought prone areas.

But, the latest plan on climate change acknowledges that India needs to find new varieties to with changing climate. In fact, in the last few years, Indian agriculture scientists have released number of hybrid varieties of different crops, which are drought resistant and consumer less water.

The Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR), Tamil Nadu Agriculture University and Potato Research Institute, Shimla, has released hybrid varies of rice, wheat, potato and of other food crops with better yield results.

The Tamil Nadu Agriculture University has come out with a new variety of rice for preparing idli with higher yield. It can be grown in areas with higher temperature, a recent university newsletter said. A new variety of rice, which can be grown in dry dirt, has been released on experimental basis in Punjab.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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