Threat to food security if no technological breakthrough: Ramesh

New Delhi, Jan 24 (UNI) Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh today said the country will soon be facing a threat to its food security unless it had a technological breakthrough to usher in a new green revolution.

And this technology would come from publicly funded research not from the private institution, he said delivering the valedictory address at the Seventh Delhi Sustainable Summit titled the 'Meeting the MDGs:Exploring the Natural Resource Dimension'.

He said that when one looks from a long term environmental perspective, one can see the need of acting in accordance with the imperatives of what is happening in the world ecology.

The varieties that helped in the first green revolution were already not yielding the same result due changes in climatic factors like temperature etc.

The wheat varieties that brought in the first green revolution were based on certain temperture profiles, but today no new varieties were being developed that could withstand increased temperature due to global warming, said Dr Ramesh.

''Wheat production has been stagnant for the last seven years forcing the country to go in for imports, so if we do not want to be in a situation like the 1960s when we had to depend on the US wheat to feed our large population, we will have develop new varieties,'' said the Minister.

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