The Hindu Business Line : Still neglected

This has reference to the article “Indian agriculture at crossroads” (Business Line, August 7). The author has rightly highlighted the drawbacks in our agricultural research and the delayed and unequal implementation of technology at the farm level. The agricultural scientists who are supported with huge salaries funded by the tax payer should be held largely responsible for this malaise. In most cases, their contribution to agricultural growth and development is practically negligible, other than some papers published in some journals, mostly for their own benefit.

As for the government policies, they only seem to deal a further blow, as rightly pointed out by the article, particularly on the issue of food imports. It is a real shame that India, blessed with excellent resources, has to import food at all.

And to make matters worse, we are being arm-twisted by the US to import substandard wheat by compromising on the quality norms.

A recent report noted that Indian regulations demand that there be less than 100 quarantine weed seeds in a 200 kg, sample whereas US is demanding that India allow 12,000 quarantined weed seeds per 200 kg of wheat.

There is no connection between our norms and their demands.

Despite this, political compulsions indicate that this deal too may be clinched. After all, who really cares for this country? To the politicians, only their self glorification and gratification matters.

J. Menon Chennai