Responsible Farming and Reliable Food Security Choosing Agrochemicals

India’s agrochemical market is dependent on various factors that include the country’s growing population and demand for foodgrains, reducing per capita availability of arable lands, and production of fertilizers. In an exclusive email conversation with TerraGreen, Rajesh Aggarwal, Managing Director, Insecticides (India) Ltd, discusses the future of agrochemical industry in India.

- Rajesh Aggarwal

With India’s growing population, one of the biggest worries is the supply of food for the future generations. What are the related challenges?

India is home to 297,319,000 hectares (ha) of land, with 179,721,000 ha of agricultural area. This provides livelihood to 60% of Indians and is one of the most dependable sources of food for future generations. One of the typical concerns for farmers across the globe is the steady decline in the amount of available arable land – in the past few decades, arable land per person has reduced from 0.52 ha to 0.2 ha, straining the existing balance and creating problems. To address this issue, developed and developing countries started using agrochemical products which not only had pesticides, but also had plant growth regulators (PGRs) and biofertilizers that promoted the growth of plants. As the indiscriminate use of agrochemical fuels speculation of terminal diseases in consumers, it also threatens to derail the attempts to attain food security, making it imperative to identify means to not only regulate the use of agrochemicals but also to dispel the myths around them.

Should the Indian consumers fear that the food they eat is laden with lethal agrochemical products?