We Need an Evergreen Revolution in India

Dr M.S. Swaminathan, known as the father of India’s Green Revolution, emphasizes on the wedlock of ecology with technology to exploit the untapped production agricultural reservoirs.

How do we connect science and technology as allies in the movement for sustainable development and where does geospatial technology fit into all this?

Sustainable development is a broad term. It has three dimensions ― environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable and economically viable. All three are important. In agricultural development, I coined a term ‘evergreen revolution’ long ago. Green revolution is to improve productivity improvement or yield improvement,not just area expansion. Evergreen revolution is increasing productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm because green revolution was criticized for excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides and other environmental issues. So, sustainable agriculture is the second goal in the UN SDG list. We will have to develop a methodology by which you can achieve sustainability in all its three dimensions for each programme area.

Technology has three major players — the scientist, the farmer and the policy makers, and impossible things can be achieved if all three come together. Geospatial technology is very important in all this. Today you can understand all the components of the Earth’s systems with spatial data. It is an important area and opens up new opportunities for sustainable use of natural resources; particularly land, water and bio-diversity. Geospatial data is very important to understand the land-use pattern and what changes are needed and how do you manage serious droughts and floods.

It’s been ages since India had the green revolution. Do you think that time has come for another green revolution?