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08/07/2019 - Agriculture

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July 08, 2019

What is meant by Cellular agriculture ? How does it help in sustainability of food production in India? Explain (200 Words)

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IAS Parliament 5 years

KEY POINTS

Cellular agriculture focuses on the production of agriculture products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology to create and design new methods of producing proteins, fats, and tissues that would otherwise come from traditional agriculture.

Sustainability of food production

·        The appeal of cellular agriculture is a combination of environmental, ethical and anti-Malthusian considerations.

·        Proponents show figures of how much land, foodgrain, water, and carbon emissions it takes to produce a kilogram of meat and argue that these figures will be around 70% lower with cellular agriculture.

·        Much of this is the rising part of the hype cycle, but unlike conventional animal husbandry that has pretty much reached the limits of its efficiency, cellular agriculture has the potential to improve its resource intensiveness over time. If it can achieve scale, it can help make global food production more sustainable than it is now.

·        Further cellular agriculture help reduce cumulative carbon emission, reduce the usage of water in animal husbandary.

·        For this reason alone, India cannot afford to ignore the industry’s potential to become an inexpensive source of high-quality protein for its population.

·        The Union government charged Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology with the goal of producing it on a commercial scale in five years.

·        The Maharashtra government has approved a collaboration between the Institute of Chemical Technology and the Good Food Institute, a non-profit organization, to carry out research and development in cellular agriculture.

·        Even so, India has an opportunity to become a major player in cellular agriculture. We have the ingredients to start accumulating intellectual property and global production capabilities, but the sector needs greater public investment in research and development, as well as private investment in entrepreneurship.

·        The government should hold firm on its positive attitude towards the science and the industry. The regulatory mindset ought to be to keep the doors open, but with ever-vigilant safeguards.

ShinjiKagawa 5 years

Kindly Review. TIA

IAS Parliament 5 years

Good attempt. Recent agricultural census is 2015-16 not 2019. Keep writing.

ShinjiKagawa 5 years

Kindly Review. TIA

Nandadeep 5 years

Kindly review.thanks

IAS Parliament 5 years

Need more elaboration on sustainable food production. Keep writing.

Sai Sri Dasaroju 5 years

Evaluate please

Thank you

IAS Parliament 5 years

Good answer. Keep writing.

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