PM pitches for evergreen revolution in agri sector

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday pitched for an "evergreen revolution" to enable the country to meet the challenge faced by the agriculture sector. He emphasised the need for moving from the concept of 'food security' to 'nutrition security', for which he favoured the scientific and technological intervention.

He said the government is working in this direction as part of its "dream" to ensure that the farmers' income doubles by 2022, when the country celebrates its 75th Independence day. "The population is increasing but the land is not going to increase...We have to see how the productivity increases...

There should be more production in less land," Modi said while releasing a two-part book series on renowned agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan at his residence here.

"The challenge in the agriculture sector remains. We keep talking about green revolution-I and green revolution-II. But the goal should be 'evergreen revolution'. We should have sustainable agricultural production," he said. He said malnutrition is a challenge and therefore the pulses need to have improved nutrition quotient.

He spoke about the "economic imbalance" among various regions of the country and said this needs to be addressed because "the country cannot run for long with the imbalance". The prime minister said the potential of various regions of the country needs to be mapped and suggested integration of traditional system of farming with the scientific ways of agriculture.

He said that on the pattern of industrial clusters, agriculture clusters should be created, wherein different areas could be identified with particular crops. This would also help in streamlining of storage and transportation, means for which differ with different crops, Modi said as he released the book series titled 'M.S. Swaminathan: The Quest for a world without hunger'. Talking about the government's objective of doubling the farmers' income by 2022, Modi said Swaminathan had recentlygiven him some suggestions on which he was working.