Food vs Fuel Dilemma: EO in Informed Decision Making
- Paper number
IAC-08.B1.5.5
- Author
Dr. V. Jayaraman, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India
- Coauthor
Dr. D. Gowrisankar, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India
- Coauthor
Dr. S.K. Srivastava, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India
- Year
2008
- Abstract
Bio-diesel has steadily emerged in the last 6-7 years from a trial production in backyard type pilot plants to full industrial type production and marketing with wide and increasing acceptance by the diesel vehicle industry, the fuel trade, and the end-user in a wide variety of market segments. It is gaining popularity owing to its multitude benefits ranging from energy security, employment generation to low environmental problem and has now emerged as a viable technology option as a biofuel in many countries. As agrarian economy with more than 60 percent dependent on agriculture sector, India cannot afford diverting the existing agricultural land parcels for the production of bio-diesel as is done in Europe and USA. Therefore, the Government of India recommended Jatropha curcas as a bio-diesel plant source for developing the bio-diesel technology and therefore it was felt critical to ascertain that the cultivation of Jatropha curcas, envisaged as means of energy security especially in the rural India, does not interfere with the food and nutritional security concerns. In pursuit of building natural resources assets in rural areas and also towards horizontal expansion of agricultural areas in the wastelands, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt of India through Department of Space, carried out nationwide wasteland mapping project using EO products and assessed the wastelands at the national level. Subsequently using such valuable data, Ministry of Rural Development has implemented several wasteland development programmes and was keen to see the impact on the ground. The National Wastelands Atlas indicates that about 35 Mha of wasteland can be reclaimed and made suitable for cultivation, especially agro-horticulture, coarse gains, bio-fuel plantation etc., with appropriate interventions, which is today being put to use. EO products enable ‘Wasteland identification’ suitable for bio-fuel cultivation and six out of nine categories of wastelands have been identified as potential areas for Jatropha curcas plantation. According to climatic conditions, and potentiality for plantation, 26 states of Indian Union have been selected for intensive Jatropha curcas plantation throughout the country. It is important to highlight that these activities have been taken up by end-user themselves to address both food and energy security in rural India and made considerable investments in arriving at locale-specific EO enabled strategies. The paper intends to highlight such efforts leading to harmonize the land uses and to bring into focus the aspects related to suite suitability for bio-diesel plantations in the reclaimable wastelands.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)