Food security tops great space challenges

Though advancements in space technologies in the last half a century have brought about tremendous benefits, achieving food security has been one of the most important of them, Isro-Dos PRL council chairman UR Rao said in Mysore on Sunday.

Food security has been a cause for concern as the country’s food production has remained nearly static over the last five years, about 200-215 million tonne. The country needed around 350 million tonne of food to meet the growing population needs, he said.

Though the Green Revolution increased food production, the use of fertiliser and chemicals had damaged soil fertility, water was still not being used efficiently, Rao said delivering a technical lecture on ‘Science & Technology — Great Challenges in Space’ here. “Soil and water conservation have to be achieved if we have to increase food production,” he said.

He listed energy, environmental, resource and space securities followed by space transportation, exploring universe and colonisation of Mars as other challenges.

“The amount of energy the country produced currently was very less and was affecting industrial advancement. We need to double or treble the energy growth in the next ten years,” he said favouring coal, as it was the second cheapest resource after hydro-electricity.

Solar and wind were beyond affordability. Battery technology had not changed since 25 years, he said, adding, “Until we improve their efficiency and cut their cost and also find alternative energy sources, we do not have an alternative to coal.”