Agro-homoeopathy: Could India’s second green revolution arrive in a drop?

Agriculture has always occupied a special place in India.It does not merely feed the nation; it also sustains the rural economy -contributing close to a fifth of our Gross Domestic Productand provides livelihood to almost 40% of our population who are farmers.[1] The remarkable progress of Indian agriculture has significantly enhanced food security for a growing population.Foodgrain production, just over 50 million tonnes at Independence, has grown more than six-fold to cross 330 million tonnes today; wheat alone has climbed from about 11 million tonnes in the early 1960s to over 113 million tonnes now.[2] We owe much of this to the first Green Revolution of the 1960s, when Dr M. S. Swaminathan, working with the Nobel laureate Dr Norman Borlaug, brought high-yielding, fertiliser-responsive dwarf wheat to Indian soil, backed by assured irrigation and generous chemical inputs.It was, in essence, a revolution.However, this progress has also brought newer challenges.Increasing dependence on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, rising input costs, concerns regarding soil health, pesticide overuse and environmental contamination compel us to search for agricultural practices that are productive, economical and sustainable.[3][4][5] More of the same cannot deliver us from these ills.If the first Green Revolution was an intense one of high growth, the one India now needs will have to be one of moderation.Therefore, sustainable agriculture will need many different and varied input solutions working together.This brings us to the questions: Can homoeopathy be one of them?Do we have evidence to believe that it can?