Pampered Crops and Sustainability

Human beings are susceptible to conditioning. Formal classroom instruction or informal digital campaigns both stifle a common man’s ability to look over the wall. The din that we create over select issues of our choice shuts the doors on feasible alternatives. Over an extended period, we run the risk of losing the indigenous societal knowledge, and the alternatives soon become obscure.

Agriculture, especially human food and nutritional security exemplifies a classic instance of human conditioning, and consequent focus continues to remain on pre-selected issues. The scientific and technological world is putting all eggs in the same basket when chasing a handful of crops to satiate human hunger. It is unfortunate even the voice of philosophers, who are supposed to act as beacons, remains subcritical.

While time and again we remind ourselves that rice forms the staple crop of more than 50% of the human population, little do we care to think since when this has happened? Rice became available, accessible and affordable to the majority of the 50% over the last 50 years. Tubers, millets and other lesser known crops were predominantly consumed by the masses of the ‘struggling world’. A rice dish, for them, was a luxury.

With new rice varieties emerging from research labs, the crop got an impetus. Mass introduction, advocacy and adoption of rice in South and South East Asia raised the plant to its present global consumption status. Rice is a demanding crop. It needs plenty of water, nutrients and time investment. The crop is sensitive to and poorly adapted for ambient temperature fluctuations. The initial buoyancy was short lived. With fatigue setting in, rice yields continue to raise eyebrows. Increasingly more certain climatic deviations complicate the cauldron.

There is a thrust to explore prospects of emerging technologies to reduce uncertainty in rice yields. Field-specific crop advisory system (based on crop simulation models) and Artificial Intelligence for timely advisories are two instances. There is nothing wrong Per-Se in deploying emerging technologies in computing and communications realms to augment human food and nutritional security; it would be prudent to explore the possibilities of alternative species, which have been shut out. They are more resilient, less demanding and offer a more sustainable alternative.

Climate Change and the Rate of Change of Climate

Change is the only constant. This axiom holds true for climate change as well.

There is no reason to be anxious with gradually changing climate. This has been the case on this planet since the origin of life. However, what should be of concern is the rate at which climate changes.

Consider Earth as a kettle of water with living organisms swimming in it. If the kettle starts warming to reach boiling point asymptotically in time, the life forms will adapt and evolve to survive in warmer waters. However, if the kettle starts warming to reach boiling point in a short span of time, the medium (water) will get sterilized. (Relate with the concept of pasteurization of milk).

  

This uni-directional rate of change and its dependence on economic indicators is the matter of concern. The latter makes it more difficult to find a solution. 

Solar Husbandry: An Innovative Crop Rotation System

Agriculture is not a lucrative activity today. But still, people continue with it only to get entangled more in debts. This behavior defys basic logic. Why do people take a loan to run into a loss? 

Counter arguments will include; they have been doing it for generations, farmers are feeding the world, what else can they do, etc. No doubt these are all true but does not answer the above question. 

But for the farmer, many others have profitable careers in the name of agriculture. That is the strange way, economics works. Economic force is different from the other physical forces of nature and does not obey the basic laws (of nature)! (compare it with laws of motion).

Perched in the lowest deck, the farmer is always at the receiveing end (!) In the higher decks, the market man winnows the heavier sparkles and leaves the chaff for the farmer. Conventional economic theory stops here (the pyramid). 

A finer look at the structure, reveals that there also exists a class of people who hover around the (pyramid) theme of agriculture, without ever getting their foot soiled or hands tainted. 

In order to make farming profitable, the decks must be inverted. However, the decks are highly related to the level of education. Hence it is important that farmers are highly educated (quality education). 

A lot of educated youngsters have turned to farming as a profession. None of them, to the best of my knowledge, are entangled in the vicious debt cycle. Education liberates them. It empowers them. The may be smart enough to think that ‘solar farming’ may be more rewarding than crop husbandry. Two seasons of crop husbandry and one season; solar husbandry!      

Technology Travelators for Sustainable Development Goals

Technology Travelators for Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development (SD) will perhaps qualify as the most ‘Malleable’ word in English lexicon. Since the publication of 'Our common future' in 1984, SD continues to occupy a non-negotiable position in almost all global programmes. It is perceived as the metaphorical blind men describing an elephant. Over the past 3 decades; the theme kept metamorphosing over Johannesburg, Kyoto and Millennium Assessment to reach the present, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Despite increasing awareness of consequences of our consumption pattern, we remain opulent and continue to slide down to increasingly more unsustainable realm. Our present understanding teaches that the breaks to stop the slide lie in our attitude and behaviour.

However, it is interesting to observe that as we slide down, we seem to get more 'interconnected'. Whilst it is yet to be ascertained if there is any relation in our interconnectedness and sustainability, it provides an unexplored lever to augur ourselves towards a sustainable trajectory. [http://envinfoiiitmk.blogspot.in/2017/07/from-intelligence-quotient-iq-to.html]. Willfully or otherwise, we are getting increasingly entangled in the network. They have grown to proportions big enough to influence individual human behaviour.

With the emergence of disruptive technologies and expansion in our ability to reveal hidden patterns from data-mazes are transforming the way we address challenges. However, advocacy of latent transformative potential of these technologies are mostly speculative. But for few illustrative case studies, there hardly exists any operational program(s) that leverage these technologies for the benefit of the masses and the goodness of nature. Neither are there any studies that dwell upon the prospects of frontier technologies to help us achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Carefully prioritized, frontier technologies can act as travelators that help us close the SDG gaps, safely.