No quick-fixes again to farmer unrest, please.
Recent UN reports project that by 2050, global population will rise from the current total of 7 billion to about 9 billion.
The imperative for such tremendous agricultural boost will hit developing economies the hardest, where the challenge is not just to produce adequate food (with appropriate nutritional traits) but to ensure easy access of the same to the masses.
Unfortunately, the main reason behind such depletion is irrigational drafting itself.
And this is a key reason why providing free electricity (a major farmer demand), will only aggravate the situation.
Recent estimates of the Central Electrical Authority (CES) project national electricity demand to rise from 776 TW-h in 2012 to about 2500 TW-h in 2030.
In the past few years drought has become a key resistance to agricultural yield that needs to be addressed on priority basis.
In 2014 this was 69 per cent and in 2012, about 44 per cent, which indicates increasing prevalence of drought.
Today almost 1 billion people are undernourished globally, and particularly in Asia (578 million).
The problem is, all these will have to happen on existing agricultural land (which is a finite quantity).