"Honorable President of India Shri Narayanan,
     It is a pleasure and an honor for me to be in India, a country for which I have great admiration and respect. India's rich cultural and spiritual heritage has benefited the whole world. The agricultural scientists of India have been making a significant intellectual contribution to the agricultural research and development globally. This First Inter-national Agronomy Congress is an illustration of that.
      As the new millennium approaches, the goal of ensuring food security remains as elusive as ever. We already have 840 million people going hungry and 2 billion malnourished. Most of the hungry are in developing countries: 37% in Africa, 20% in Asia and 13% in Latin America. Their number will continue to increase with the rapid population growth. On the other hand, natural resources essential for providing food, fiber and biomass are being lost or degraded.
     Food security for the population today and for an additional 3 billion people in the next 20 years is truly a formidable challenge. But agricultural research--along with right policies and institutional support to the farmers--can help meet this challenge. India has already demonstrated this, through its Green Revolution. Our hope for the future, however, lies in areas that are considered less productive or unsuitable for agriculture, which the Green Revolution did not touch.
      Over 3,000 million hectares of land in developing countries is considered marginal for agriculture, but much of it can be made more productive through appropriate technologies and policies. The low yield potential of this land makes the use of external inputs uneconomical. But if we can develop the right strategies for agricultural intensification in these areas, they can substantially contribute to increasing food production. These strategies must be built on four key elements: (i) improved technologies and farming systems, including the use of underutilized crop species, (ii) secure property rights and effective institutions, (iii) effective risk management, and (iv) the right policy environment.
      Poverty and the degradation of the natural resource base is a vicious cycle. If the poor do not have enough to eat, they would, unintentionally, neglect or overuse or even destroy the natural resource base. This is understandable because survival comes before anything else. But we must find ways to break the complex cycle of poverty and the loss of natural resources. The knowledge generated from agricultural research can help in identifying the factors that lead to the creation of such a cycle, and in developing appropriate solutions. We must put poverty at the heart of our  research strategies and programs. We must develop technologies that will help not only in increasing production but also in generating increased income to the farming community. Through a participatory approach, we can integrate the poor in the research process.
     On the other hand, hunger is not entirely a result of food shortages. Inadequate access to the food that is available is another important

issue in poverty alleviation. Access to food, we all know, is highly unequal. World food stocks have dwindled to their lowest level in the past 20 years, and 60% of those stocks are now held by private companies which control their price, distribution and location. Seventy percent of world grain trade is carried out by just six companies.
     The question is whether economic liberalization will help achieve food security or widen the gap between rich and poor? This is where national governments have a very important role to play. Policies that penalize crops grown in marginal areas should be eliminated. Governments must make policy and institutional changes, invest in agricultural research in less-favored areas, rural infrastructure, education and health to develop human capital and involve local communities to address these issues. The objective should be for the rural people to take advantage of the market.

       New tools of research, such as remote sensing, GIS, biotechnology and computer science can greatly help accelerate our pace of increasing food production and alleviating poverty. Integrated gene management in harmony with the various disciplines of agricultural research can provide us with crop cultivars that can tolerate abiotic stresses, such as drought and heat, and can resist diseases and pests.
       Modern information technology has turned what was considered as fiction, into reality. Speedy sharing and exchange of knowledge through information superhighways, and the use of computer programs and expert systems for research and extension have brought us

to the cutting edge of technology. The gap between industrialized and developing countries in their knowledge capital and progress in research is increasing. No research and development strategy for a developing country would be complete without a strong information technology component.
      Mr President, the Indian Society of Agronomy has shown great foresight and wisdom in calling for this First International Agronomy Congress, focused on environment and food security for the 21st Century. It is an important landmark in meeting the challenge that researchers, policy makers, and the general public face today. This challenge cannot be met alone. The key to success lies in partnerships and in working together globally.
     Your presence, Mr President, reflects the highest political will to enhance agricultural production by strengthening the agricultural research system in India. As part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), we have great admiration for India's achievements in the agricultural sector, and we commend the exemplary commitment of the Government of India to agricultural research. The active and ever-growing involvement of India in the CGIAR System is highly appreciated. On behalf of the System, I would like to emphasize, Mr President, that we have had a fruitful and synergistic relationship in the past with the agricultural research system in India, and we would like to continue and further expand this collaboration in meeting the formidable challenges of the next millennium.