Research for Livelihood: A dangerous trend

Research for Livelihood: A dangerous trend

There are 975+ universities in the country and no university is listed in best 100 universities in the world. IIT, Mumbai ranked 162^nd rank. Country means not the land, it is the people. Likewise, Institute means, it is people who work there. Too much of science with no practicability is of no use. Lot of science is known already. Converting knowledge into reality is a big challenge. Since, many are trying to escape the value of sweat, Knowledge is going waste. Government policies, guidelines, strict vigilance cannot bring changes in science. A moral police within an individual can bring changes.

Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) is the biggest agri-research network in the world. The ICAR research and extension mechanism has played a pioneering role in ushering green revolution and subsequent developments in agriculture in India through its research and technology development that has enabled the country to increase the production of food grains by 5.4 times, horticultural crops by 10.1 times, fish by 15.2 times, milk 9.7 times and eggs 48.1 times since 1951 to 2017, thus making a visible impact on the national food and nutritional security. Among 101 ICAR research institutes and 71 agricultural universities and 700 KVKs in the country, there are 8 major fisheries research institutes and 2 fisheries universities. About 18700 people including technical and supporting staff at ICAR network which is one of the largest research networks in the world, about 20000+ in state agriculture universities are working. By taking 40% as scientific staff, about 15480 agricultural scientists are there in the country. Around 774 (5%) of scientists are with fisheries and specialization. This works out to be one fisheries researcher for every 17.5 lakh people in the country. In Karnataka for every 4.5 lakh people there is one fisheries development officer and it is even less in other states in India. Each of the eight national fisheries institutes and 30 fisheries colleges may organize 10 training programs and it will be 370 programs a year. By taking 30 participants for each program, our outreach through training program is 11,110 people/anum and it works out to be 0.0082% (by taking 135 crore as present population of India). After training and capacity building program, the uptake percentage is only less than 3. This gives the indicative status of fisheries extension and capacity building. So, to increase fish production from 11.6 mt to 15.0 mt and food production from 278 mt to 350 mt by 2022, we need to strengthen the extension mechanism through innovative approaches and increase need-based, region specific, result oriented capacity building programs.

The principles of science is same everywhere. If China and Israel are producing more, it is because of advance science and technology. Though we can’t adopt many of them in Indian agriculture, most of them can be copied and produce more.

The issues bothering Agriculture research are:

§  Research for livelihood: Research on livelihood is fine; but just for doing research on some hypothesis leading to waste of manpower, resources etc. That is why though there are many claims that technologies are developed by institutes, we don’t find them in the field. Hundreds of papers

§  Duplication of research: By developing an app, we must regulate all the duplication of research program and save money to the country

§  Mistrust: Farmers and industry professionals have serious mistrust on government institutes. We need to bridge this gap by taking up need based in collaboration with industries and progressive farmers and bring social auditing to the investment made on the research

§  Unrealistic complex Concepts: Zero budget farming, Natural farming, Jaivik farming are all new jargons which are very hard to accept. But all of them have kept their guns on research institutes shoulder and since they are funded by the government, they are unable make their stand clear.  Even for zero budget farming crores of rupees is allotted. Farming is an intended activity. Unfortunately it is used with the word “Natural”. One can’t use those words together. Whether you go by verbatim or reality, people are making their livelihood without showing the end product.

§  Wrong data: With wrong data, we cannot come out with right strategies. We need to upgrade all the data that are available now.

It is not too late. Good numbers of bright young professionals are getting into the system. With a good team work and common objectives, scientists have to unite and work on a mission mode project. We don’t live for 100+ years. Let’s do it fast.