Understanding the Geographic Pattern of Diffusion of Modern Crop Varieties in India
By 2033, India’s demand for food grains is predicted to increase to 333 million tons (GoI, 2018), and new challenges stand in the way of meeting that demand. Indian agriculture is now threatened by several biotic and abiotic factors, such as quantitative and qualitative deterioration of natural resources (i.e., land and water), increasing frequency of extreme climatic events (i.e., droughts, heat waves and floods), and deceleration in technological gains achieved during the bio-chemical technology boom of 1970s. Moreover, the yield growth of important staple cereal crops, viz., rice and wheat, has decelerated considerably.
