Use biotech to boost farm productivity: Chidambaram

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram Thursday exhorted the biotech sector to enhance agricultural productivity and achieve self-sufficiency in food supplies.Inaugurating the three-day Bangalore Bio 2007 here, Chidambaram said the sector should achieve breakthroughs in agriculture research to increase productivity, improve quality and ensure better returns on farmers' investment.

'At a time when the services sector is growing by 30 percent, the manufacturing sector by 12 percent per annum, the slow growth rate (2.4 percent) in the agriculture sector and stagnant food production is a cause for concern,' he said.

Though the biotech sector has achieved remarkable breakthroughs in pharma and cash crops such as BT cottonseeds, the need of the hour is to step-up yields of rice, wheat, pulses and oilseeds to meet the growing demand for essential commodities and check the price rice, according to the finance minister.

'No country as large as India with over a billion mouths can expect to meet the food needs by imports, which can only be a temporary measure. The total acreage of land for cultivating basic food crops such as wheat and paddy (rice) has remained stagnant for long. Production also remained near stagnant and below world average. Yield gaps vary between states as well as crops.

'It is the biotech sector which can usher in the second green revolution by applying biotechnology and bio-resources in food crops as it has been doing of late in cash crops like BT cotton. The challenge for Indian scientists is to replicate the breakthroughs in food crops, while addressing concerns about genetic engineering at the same time,' Chidambaram told about 800 delegates participating in the trade event.

With the GDP growing at eight-nine percent and demand for food articles growing, thanks to the increasing purchasing power and greater consumption, the government had been forced to import wheat, pulses and oilseeds to check the price rise and moderate inflation.

'Instead of exporting rice and wheat, we are importing pulses and oilseeds to bridge the demand-supply gap and control prices. To reverse the situation, biotechnology and bio-resources have to be invested in food crops to not only meet the growing demand, but also achieve self-sufficiency to avoid imports,' Chidambaram pointed out.

Lauding the achievements of the sector in bio-pharma, bio-informatics and bio-research leading to drug discovery, new molecules and clinical development, the finance minister said the 35 percent growth achieved in the last fiscal (FY 2007) had pitch-forked India to the third position after Japan and South Korea in the Asia-Pacific region.

'I have no doubt the sector will move to the frontline of bio-pharma on global scale. Besides balancing cost, quality and effectiveness of generic or new drugs, pharma companies have to find cures for dreaded diseases such as HIV, AIDS and hepatitis,' Chidambaram noted.

Admitting funding and talent resource were critical to the rapid growth of the biotech sector, he said the government would address the early stage funding issue and facilitate building the human capital by the industry as well as the academia.

'We are aware of the problem. We have already amended the Income Tax Act to channel venture capital into high-risk funding from low-risk,' the minister added.

Source : news.smashits.com