Global BioAg Linkages and Chairman,
ICFA Working Group on Crop Protection
Crop losses owing to pest and diseases are inherent to any agricultural system. It is particularly significant in Indian agriculture owing to the tropical situation. Around 15-25 per cent of the crop produced is lost due to pest infestation and disease infections. The introduction of high yielding varieties, monocropping, climate change and an absent disease forecasting machinery have together kept the losses at significant levels in Indian agriculture.
India is the fourth largest producer of agrochemicals globally, after the US, Japan and China. This segment generated a value of USD 4.4 billion in FY15 and is expected to grow at 7.5% per annum to reach USD 6.3 billion by FY20. However, the usage of agrochemicals in India is one of the lowest in the world at just 0.58 kg per hectare. With limited availability of fertile land to cultivate food and feed an ever growing population, the only alternative is to increase productivity per hectare. Crop protection chemicals can increase crop productivity by 25-50%, by mitigating crop loss due to pest attacks. Crop protection chemicals are therefore very crucial to ensure food and nutritional security. Although crop protection measures figure only towards the end of any package of practices, they ultimately determine the health and quantity of the harvest. Investing in appropriate crop protection measures is hence a very wise and prudent way in ensuring successful agriculture. International Conference on Crop Protection organized by ICFA thus becomes a significant step towards bringing together all the stakeholders on a single platform to discuss and evolve steps for encouraging judicious and sustainable way of using crop protection chemicals.
The Conference aims at achieving the following specific objectives:
