He says much more has to be done and set right in the agriculture sector with the help of modern science and technology. Agriculture has to be knowledge-based, he told a press conference convened to announce the formation of an Agro-Industries Foundation (AIF). It is ``to meet the challenges for the new millennium for providing food and nutrition security and not to duplicate what others are doing, but to set `New Trails'.

This marks the beginning of the second agricultural revolution to make India the granary of the world,'' he said. The thrust areas of the foundation are productivity increase in irrigated areas, dry farming, marketing, and upgradation of technologies. Subramaniam emphasised the urgent necessity to help overcome the present problems agriculturists are facing such as low productivity, poor quality, access to pre and post-harvest technologies, cold storage chains and marketing facilities.

He says, ``our efforts have so far been to increase grain production like rice and wheat, but for a healthy society it is not merely food availability but also adequate nutrition that are important. Therefore, agriculture are produced. This requires a new approach to agriculture.''The four prime factors in agriculture are soil, water, seed & saplings and fertiliser. In all these areas, new technologies have been developed and there is scope for improving production of various commodities.

The green revolution is confined mainly to irrigated areas. Even here, the productivity is lower than in the developed countries like the US. So the first priority has to be to step up the productivity or green revolution areas.

Secondly, dry farming or rain fed farming forms the major portion of the land, where no significant progress has been made. By applying new technologies, it will be possible for India to increase the production in dry farming areas.

A separate commercial organisation will be set up to deal with storage, transport, processing and marketing facilities. This strategy has been worked out with the assistance of agricultural and management experts who have achieved results and have experienced the application of new technologies, not only in other countries but also in certain limited pockets in India. Subramaniam stressed ``the objective is to develop a brand name for agricultural products, as a symbol of quality, service and competitive prices to the best international standards''.

``Any farmer can become a member of the foundation, which will provide information on new technologies and all subjects covering agriculture such as pesticides, drip irrigation, crop diseases, productivity, costs & returns and insurance. The Foundation expects to run experimental farms, of, say 5 acres for each product such as cashew, mangoes, guava, nutritious products, flowers, vegetables, grass seeds, etc. This will result in model farms in terms of yield, productivity, quality and returns. These serve as motivation by example for all farmers.

The foundation, will also provide the latest ``state-of-the-art test facilities for prompt service to members on soil, water, among others. Training facilities will be provided to develop ``farm manager'' to run farms to the best norms of productivity apart from all other layers such as skilled workers, tractor operators and maintenance workers.

The Foundation will help the small farmers, who predominate, to apply new technologies to upgrade their production qualitatively and quantitatively. ``Rural Industries based on agriculture will be planned to bring out a rural regeneration, as was envisaged by the father of our nation during the freedom movement. This will assist in village upliftment and stop migration from rural to urban sector.''

MK Raju, a management expert, who has been involved with this project right from its inception, will provide the managerial perspective and C Lakshmanan, agricultural consultant from California, USA, who has rich field experience, will provide the inputs for improving productivity, dry farming and nutritious products.

Subramaniam concluded ``if adequate step are not taken to give due prominence to agriculture, India may soon land itself in the danger of becoming a food deficit country. Man can live without anything else but not without food. In this scenario, this foundation has great relevance.