Large-scale poverty among farmers and the spurt of suicides by agriculturists in various parts of the country indicates that our agriculture is in crisis. But this crisis is different compared to similar situations, earlier. In the 1960s, when India passed though great famines or food shortages, the country was not prepared to meet the difficulties. We had little in terms of infrastructure, technology or policy support. But today, there is a large national agricultural research system that works in all parts of the country, developing and transferring technology to farmers.

But this system