Outbreaks of different forms of rust, the most destructive wheat disease, have frequently lowered wheat production. Wheat scientists have no doubt successfully overcome this peril every time it emerged, especially after the green revolution, by breeding disease-resistant varieties. But the combat seems endless.

Surinder Sud: Fighting wheat rust

Business Standard

After the eradication of dreaded livestock ailments like rinderpest and contagious bovine pleura-pneumonia, the focus now is on stamping out another equally perilous malaise called foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). The World Animal Health Organisation has identified this disease as the most important constraint on international trade in animal products.

Surinder Sud: The foot-and-mouth scourge

The soaring demand for animal-based protein products and the consequential spike in their prices seem to be impacting the profile of India&rsquo;s livestock sector. The predominance of cattle is gradually waning with relatively smaller animals like goats, sheep and pigs gaining more space to meet the enhanced demand for meat. A noteworthy aspect of the changing population-mix of the larger livestock (cattle and buffaloes) is that less productive, indigenous cows are being replaced by high milk-yielding buffaloes. There is, moreover, no social injunction on the consumption and export of their meat.

Surinder Sud: Meat of the matter

The government&rsquo;s foodgrain inventory is set to balloon to a new peak of over 75 million tonnes by June. Given the available pucca warehousing space for a mere 45.5 million tonnes, huge quantities of precious foodgrain will inevitably have to be stacked in the open in makeshift food depots. Even if the stockpile is covered with polythene sheets &ndash; hopefully, it will be &ndash; the peril of damage caused by rain, wind, insect-pests and rodents cannot be ruled out.

Surinder Sud: Going against the grain

Nearly half of the agricultural work is handled by women in developing countries and India is no exception. Yet, strategies for the development of agriculture are directed primarily at men. Barely five per cent of the extension efforts and resources are targeted at farm women. This failing, predictably, costs a good amount owing to loss of a part of potential farm production.

Surinder Sud: Weeding out a gender bias

The remarkable success of the transgenic Bt cotton &ndash; which carries an alien insect-killer gene borrowed from soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt &ndash; and the pace at which it has spread in India are unparalleled in the world. Nearly 95 per cent of the cotton planting is now done with Bt-cotton seeds. The production of cotton has swelled from around 13 million bales (of 170 kg each) at the time of its introduction in 2002-03 to 34.5 million bales in 2011-12. Annual cotton exports have surged from 1.5 million bales to 8.5 million bales. Its other benefits include a reduction in the use of pesticides that are harmful to the environment, decline in the cost of cultivation and rise in net returns for farmers, besides expansion of cotton-based commerce and industry.

Surinder Sud: New seeds of hope

When agricultural growth was decelerating in the early noughties, the blame was put partly on the slowdown in the generation of new technology by the farm research network. This was also the phase in which the agricultural research manpower was shrinking owing to the bar on recruitments. The move impeded the flow of fresh scientific talent into farm research bodies, leading to an ageing cadre of scientists and a backlog of unfilled positions in research institutions.

Surinder Sud: New testing grounds

Agricultural development is considered a reliable means to reduce rural poverty. But this is not true in Bihar&rsquo;s case. After a protracted phase of near stagnation or even slowdown in agriculture, the state, over the past few years, witnessed a notable acceleration in agricultural growth and the implementation of poverty alleviation programmes. Yet, going by the findings of a recent study, rural poverty in the state has not been impacted in any significant way.

Surinder Sud