Transforming Indian Agriculture – Technology Applications Bharat Char

1. Transforming Indian Agriculture – Technology Applications Bharat Char 4th BIO-NANO Agri Summit 2015 New Delhi 3 Sept 2015

2. Priority areas for India • Protecting current yields • Insect resistance, disease tolerance • Climate change-induced challenges: coping with abiotic stresses • Maximizing yields while optimizing fertilizer inputs • Deficit in pulses and oilseeds • Key technologies that can contribute to reducing dependence on imports • Labour availability and its impact • Labour-saving technologies • Subsidy issue on fertilizer • Higher efficiency uptake of nutrients

3. Water availability – a looming crisis • 68% of sown area is subject to drought in varying degrees • Rainfall is erratic in 4 out of 10 years. • Per capita water availability is steadily declining • increase in population, rapid industrialization, urbanization, cropping intensity and declining ground water level • Technologies under development • - can protect crop yields by up to 60% • maintain yields under normal conditions • possible commercialization by 2020 • Source: DAC, 2014

4. WUE for Pulses: Chickpea • Area under chickpea: 9.14 m ha • Production: 8.49 mn tonnes (929 kg/ha) • Current status of pulses in India is • Production: 18-19 mt (39% being chickpea) • Consumption: 22-23 mntonnes. • Imports: 3.5-4.0 mntonnes • Import value : 2.3 Bn US$ • Potential exists for improving yields significantly by introducing WUE as lack of irrigation is the major constraint on productivity • Pod borer resistance another major potential contributor for yield protection

5. Sugarcane: constraints and potential solutions • High water requirement crop: 250 tonnes of water needed to produce one tonne of sugarcane. • Critical stages affected severely due to water stress: germination, tillering, ripening • 30 per cent and more loss in productivity for every two degree centigrade increase in temperature • Weeds have been estimated to cause 12 to 72 % reduction in cane yield • An average crop of sugarcane yielding 100 t/ha removes 208 kg of N, 53 kg of P, 280 kg of K • Insect damage reduces yields by an estimated 20% • Key technologies that can be applied: WUE, heat tolerance, herbicide tolerance, NUE, IR

6. Fertilizer use in India • Consumption in India is 168 lakh tonnes of nitrogen fertilizer out of a total of 255 lakh tonnes (2012-13) • To meet the food needs of the country by 2025 – 240 mn t of cereals and 200+ mn tonnes of veg/fruits – India may have to increase its plant nutrient supply to over 400-450 lakh tonnes. (IIM-A, NAAS) • Subsidy for 2015-16 budgeted Rs 72,969 cr, soil health impacted due to skewed NPK ratio • Application of NUE technology is conservatively estimated to achieve 10-20% yield gain at existing levels of N fertilizer • Looking at 2025, this translates to significant savings on N fertilizer • Source: DCI&S, DAC

7. Nitrogen use efficient plants Gene technology is available which allows cells to utilise N efficiently in various cellular processes such as amino acid synthesis This allows for increased biomass of the plant using the same amount of input N with 15-20% gain seen in the greenhouse Greenhouse trials in rice and cotton have been completed, and potential commercial lines identified. Permission for field trials has been sought for K-2015 with potential commercialization in 2018-19.

8. An enabling environment • Long development cycles require a predictable regulatory process • Process is robust but lack of movement on field trials is a major hindrance to evaluation of new technologies outside the greenhouse • This has made industry rethink on investments • Science-based decisions on new technologies a must • Aligned policy environment between Centre and States • Harmonise regulatory environment: Seed Bill, BRAI, BDA • ~***~