PM calls for 2nd revolution

By OUR CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi, April 10: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday described the current trend of food shortages and rising food prices as "one of the most urgent challenges of our times" and called for ushering in a second Green Revolution.

By this, the Prime Minister has echoed the sentiments of President Pratibha Patil, when she gave a similar call last week.

Dr Singh said in this regard that the government has initiated efforts to revitalise agricultural research and extension systems.

"A steep rise in food price will make inflation control more difficult and can thereby hurt the cause of macro-economic stability. The constituency for economic reforms, so necessary for growth, would also diminish."

However, Dr Singh said the situation cannot be resolved by returning to an era of "blind controls" of the pre-economic reforms era and by depressing agriculture’s terms of trade as it would hurt farmers’ welfare as well as the long-term growth of the economy.

Dr Singh said this while addressing the Global Agro-Industries Forum 2008, jointly organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Industrial Development Organisation and the International Fund For Agricultural Development. Dr Singh was conferred the FAO "Agricola" medal for his contributions to Indian agriculture and community development.

Dr Singh saw the present world food crisis as resulting from new-found love of countries for bio-fuels. "It is particularly worrisome that the new economics of bio-fuels is encouraging a shift of land away from food crops. What this has done is that for the first time, there is a direct linkage between oil prices and food prices. Food markets have got interlinked to oil markets, making food policy — making extremely complex as well as uncertain," he said.