Agriculture and Energy are two of the main issues that India is likely to have to deal with in the next 25 years. As India moves towards being a developed country we would not want to lose our self sufficiency in food. And we would need to generate more and more power to meet the energy demands of our huge population with high per capita income as India develops. if India's GDP rises 40-60 times by 2050, as predicted by Goldman Sachs, energy consumption will rise at least 20 times, exacerbating the global energy crisis.
AGRICULTURE:
The business initiatives by Reliance, Bharti and others to supply the farmers with the technical knowhow and buy their out put at agreed prices and connect them directly to retail hypermarkets still covers even less than 0.25 % of the total land under cultivation. Their is serious opportunity in this sector for new entrepreneurs.
The time has come when we also need to develop our education system to promote creativity and innovation. Only the society which thrives on innovation, science and creativity would survive and rule in the years to come. This applied in agriculture will develop high yielding grain varieties whose production has stagnated in last 7 years.
ENERGY:
The oil prices are rising and the trend in global warming and pollution is also demanding that we look into alternate forms of renewable and pollution free energy. The research into cellulose-ethanol conversion holds a hope for India. This would enable us to produce ethanol not only from sugarcane juice but from bagasse as well. Tall grasses can be grown in submerged areas and used for producing ethanol using this technology.
Solar energy, though inefficient so far, holds potential for the future. One way can be to use barren lands of kutch and western rajasthan for the purpose of generating solar energy which can be used for day time energy needs and to use the flood prone areas for growing wild grass which can be converted to ethanol. We can even think of using the roof tops of homes and building for installing solar power plants. But the harnessing of solar power is dependent upon the development of technology that would make solar power much efficient and cheaper.
Surprisingly, some experts are also suggesting solar farming, i.e., covering some areas of farm land with panels to produce solar electricity instead of growing crops on it. The premise is that 20% of GDP is accounted for by agriculture employing 60 % of the workforce...clearly inefficient use of workforce. We need to move more people into skilled high productivity jobs.
AGRICULTURE:
The business initiatives by Reliance, Bharti and others to supply the farmers with the technical knowhow and buy their out put at agreed prices and connect them directly to retail hypermarkets still covers even less than 0.25 % of the total land under cultivation. Their is serious opportunity in this sector for new entrepreneurs.
The time has come when we also need to develop our education system to promote creativity and innovation. Only the society which thrives on innovation, science and creativity would survive and rule in the years to come. This applied in agriculture will develop high yielding grain varieties whose production has stagnated in last 7 years.
ENERGY:
The oil prices are rising and the trend in global warming and pollution is also demanding that we look into alternate forms of renewable and pollution free energy. The research into cellulose-ethanol conversion holds a hope for India. This would enable us to produce ethanol not only from sugarcane juice but from bagasse as well. Tall grasses can be grown in submerged areas and used for producing ethanol using this technology.
Solar energy, though inefficient so far, holds potential for the future. One way can be to use barren lands of kutch and western rajasthan for the purpose of generating solar energy which can be used for day time energy needs and to use the flood prone areas for growing wild grass which can be converted to ethanol. We can even think of using the roof tops of homes and building for installing solar power plants. But the harnessing of solar power is dependent upon the development of technology that would make solar power much efficient and cheaper.
Surprisingly, some experts are also suggesting solar farming, i.e., covering some areas of farm land with panels to produce solar electricity instead of growing crops on it. The premise is that 20% of GDP is accounted for by agriculture employing 60 % of the workforce...clearly inefficient use of workforce. We need to move more people into skilled high productivity jobs.
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