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Although poverty has been dramatically reduced in many parts of the world, a quarter of the world’s people remain in severe poverty. Technology has the strength to make a difference to this world. The problem is not the tool but the direction in which it can be utilized.
There is a need to develop a new pathway in which technology not only produces increases n manufacturing productivity but also touches the lives of down trodden and those living In the brink of poverty. Technology relates to poverty In many ways It reduces It. It promotes it, it helps poor to survive. We will discuss its different aspects related to poverty. POVERTY: In broader sense to be poor is to be hungry, to lack shelter and clothing, to be illiterate and not schooled and not to be cared for.
Progress in human development and poverty eradication is achieved through revolts, history is full of such uprisings. Poverty Is not only linked with lack of income but also lack of lifetime of basic needs such as water, shelter, food and clothing and human suffering and poverty. In India, poverty Is officially linked to a nutritional baseline measured in calories (food energy method). The Planning Commission defines poverty lines as a per capita monthly expenditure of RSI 49 for the rural areas and RSI 57 in urban areas at 1973-74 all India prices.
Poverty line correspond too total household per capita expenditure sufficient to provide, in addition to basic non-food items – clothing, transport – a dally intake of 2,400 calories per person In rural areas ND 2,100 In urban areas. Individuals who do not meet these calorie norms fall below the poverty line. Technology: In broader terms technology is practical application of science. Technology has a direct link with national development.
It is critical in the provision of the basic infrastructure needed for industrial and agricultural development. It is indispensable in improving productivity, starting new processes and developing new products. It Is believed that, If technology can be successfully linked to the process of overall national development, It can become a n Important world. Technological advancements are not uniformly distributed in world. More than 600 million people worldwide have some sort of access to the internet However, that still leaves about 5. Billion people who do not use the net and who have no access. Most of these people live outside the developed Western countries. While over half of I-J households are online, only 0. 1% of homes in Bangladesh can claim the same. Access to technology is not same as access to other resources, like clean water, adequate health care, sufficient food, or educational opportunities, because all have priority in development plans.
School children or college student with net access have an advantage in doing research for homework, and a village with a working internet connection has an advantage in monitoring weather patterns, help fishermen in knowing what the tides are doing and getting help with pest control. Sometimes technology is part of the problem, not part of the solution. In the asses, many developing countries were encouraged to base their farming on the heavy use of chemicals and machines. But as the tractors broke down and the costs of pesticides rose, the result was famine.
Getting internet access to remote hill villages ay not be as important as getting clean water or effective healthcare, but it is true that web and mailing is a gateway to other resources and to self-reliance. A farmer can take a beetle he finds on his crop and check it against a comprehensive catalogue on a CD-Room in his village. Children can learn about local history, world events or scientific advances in school, using resources that would never be available in print because of the cost and the problems of distributing books.
Technology and poverty eradication: Though poverty is often considered economically, it relates armorial to the limited access of the poor people to the knowledge and resources with which to redress their basic human needs and promote sustainable livelihoods and development. Areas of basic needs include provision of water, sanitation, food production processing, housing, energy, transportation, communication, employment creation and income generation.
Addressing basic needs in these areas consists essentially the application of engineering and technology appropriate to the context of poor people – in terms of the Social, Economic, Educational and Knowledge situations of the poor. Engineering and technology can empower poor by enabling them to address their basic needs, alleviate their own poverty and promote sustainable livelihood. The basic strategy for activity in Science and Technology and poverty eradication is to develop a program of action promoting the role, contribution and awareness of the importance of these two to poverty reduction.
The challenge is to put poor people more closely in touch with technology they can use to help to reduce their own poverty. For this purpose the technology should be affordable and understandable, preferably building upon local knowledge, skills and materials. In designing such a strategy we should bear-in-mind that poor people are often more exposed to natural calamities and disasters, and that there is an important role for engineering and technology in disaster management, preparedness mitigation. Now we will discuss how technology can eradicate poverty.
A. )information technology: Information and Communication Technologies (Sits) can revolutionize society by helping people access vital medical advice; determine the price their crops will fetch at market; and access to information about new farming techniques. New delivery, and teacher training. They can help create new Job opportunities for people living in poverty. These technologies can also empower women and the disadvantaged to increase their access to information and participate in the economy.
Poverty is much more than the mere absence of money. Often, generations in poverty lead people to a sense of utter hopelessness and rob them of their sense of self respect and dignity. They are deprived of access to essential assets and opportunities such as education, healthcare, employment, land and other natural resources, services, infrastructure and credit. They have little say in their politics and society. For the benefit of mass community programmer like information village research project have been started.
The Information Village Research Project : It is an experiment in electronic knowledge delivery to the poor. MISER has set up knowledge centre in ten villages near Benedictory, southern India and connected them in a hub and spokes configuration by a hybrid wired and wireless network – consisting of PC’s, telephones, VHF duplex radio devices, spread spectrum and e-mail connectivity through dial-up telephone lines or VAST – that facilitates both voice and data transfer, which enable he villagers to get the information they need to improve their lives.
They use wireless links to connect villages without telephones. They use solar energy to run our computers so that we can provide our services even during power failures, which are frequent in these villages. The hub located at Villain, a small town 13 km west of Benedictory, serves as the value-addition centre. All the knowledge centre are open to everyone irrespective of age, sex, religion, caste, and level of literacy and education. No one is excluded.
The centre provide information on such aspects as ropes, farm practices, animal husbandry, market prices, education, health, employment opportunities, government entitlements, weather, fishing conditions, bus timings, micro-enterprises and rural yellow pages. About 50,000 people living in these villages benefit from this programmer. The contribution of Mohammed Yuan’s are very important in this field. He sets an example by using communication technology in poverty eradication.
In March 1997, Germane Telecoms, a nonprofit company, was established to launch cellular telephone operations in rural areas. Telephones are greatly needed in Bangladesh, where the telephone density is one of he lowest in the world. Telephones provide the kind of access to information whether it be the market price for a farmer’s crop or news that a relative is ill. Twenty-eight Germane Bank borrowers became pioneers as providers of telephone service for their villages.
These women, chosen by their fellow Germane borrowers, were given loans of approximately $350 each, which covered the cost of the telephone, the hook-up, training, and repair services. As the “wireless women” of their villages, they purchase air time at wholesale prices from Germane Telecoms and sell the telephone service to their neighbors at the market rate. Basically, they act as human pay phones in places where there are no land lines and no one has even seen a telephone or made a phone call.
The telephone operators have thus far been earning net profits of approximately $2 a day, more than $700 a year. This is significantly more than the $250 average annual per capita income in Bangladesh. Involves more than simply providing technology. They must be owners of that technology, not Just its passive consumers, and ownership of technology is catching on, as more and more borrowers become telephone vendors. In few months the original 28 pioneers have more than doubled to become 60, and with additional funding for the program, the quality and quantity of services in rural areas increased rapidly .
The cellular phone company Germane Phone, in Joint venture with Telethon of Norway and Marianne of Japan and Xenophobe of the United States as a non-Germane partner–is selling wholesale air time to Germane Telecoms, which then provides the same rate to the borrowers, who in turn charge the retail rate to their customers. Germane Phone is also providing services in urban areas with 20,000 subscribers at present. This impressive number was achieved in only 8 months. Over the next 6 years, Germane Telecoms anticipates 1 million Germane Phone subscribers and 50,000 village pay phones owned and operated by Germane Bank borrowers.
Another technological venture being designed by Germane Communications and Germane Foundation USA is the Village Internet Program, a pilot project in which borrowers will take loans to purchase and operate “Cyber Kiosks” for profit. These village computer centers will make it possible for Germane borrowers to access the Internet in search of income-generating activities and to provide education and computer-based employment. This exciting project, still at an early stage of development, has drawn together a team of professionals from around the world to finalize design plans.
Major benefit of this Internet service will be increased access to agricultural and market information. Farmers will be able to learn the current market price of their produce through the Internet, resulting in increased economic efficiency. More importantly, accurate and timely information will reduce exploitation of poor rural producers by allowing them to access the market directly rather than go through middlemen who can control prices at both ends when they control information and transport Now, there are nearly 200,000 telephone ladies all over Bangladesh, and that number keeps increasing.
So state-of-the-art mobile technology has reached the very poor people, and it’s a very good source of income for them. If a poor woman gets hold of one mobile phone in the village, then this is a sure bet that her entire family can move out of poverty in two or three year. But 70% people of people didn’t have electricity. Charging of phones became a problem. Separate company called Germane Shasta [Energy] that sells solar panels and other renewable energy sources in Bangladesh was established.
This is probably the largest commercial solar energy distribution company in the whole world, because it sells 1 ,500 solar-energy home systems per month on a commercial basis. It’s a for-profit business, and it works very well without subsidies. This shows that there is improvement in financial conditions of people and they are eager to make profit or invest at small scale. They have Just completed a deal with the French company Group Deanne to set up a food company in Bangladesh. It will be called Germane Deanne Food Co.
There is a need for healthy baby food, because children born to poor implies often become sick as soon as they stop sucking their mothers milk. They also process and market milk products and eventually fruit items. Telekinetic with videoconferencing has started. It’s not very successful yet, because people don’t consultation with a doctor in Dacha instead of coming all the way to Dacha for the consultation. It is understood by Mr.. Hussy that needs of poor are small and a little help to them can do miracles to them.
Even in our country Monika is engaged in this kind of stuff ,though it is for profit but poor are getting benefits from it. This service is roving to be so important that poor farmers are willing to pay $1. 35 for it. Since 2009, 6. 3 million people have signed up to pay Monika for commodity data in India, China and Indonesia. In India, China and Indonesia, Monika has entered into commercial partnerships with agricultural extension and weather agencies, which collate, edit, package and translate weather, market news and pricing data in more than 13 local languages.
They are providing the services in local languages , which brings it more closer to poor people ,as they are not educated. In Nigeria, Monika plans o work with Unmet, the Nigerian meteorological agency, and Main, the Nigerian agricultural market information system. For an additional $1. 40 a month, Nigerian mobile users can receive daily texts, with graphics, on health and disease news. B. )BIOTECHNOLOGY: Biotechnology is one of the best hopes for solving the food needs of the poor today, when we have 6 billion people in the world, and certainly in the next 30 to 50 years, when there will be 9 billion on the globe.
But the safety and affects of this technology are questioned. The most people believe that Products from biotechnology are no less safe than traditionally bred crops. In fact, they may be even safer, because they represent small, precise alterations with the introduction of genes whose biology is well understood. Often these genes are derived from other food crops. Further, genetically improved products are subjected to intensive testing, while conventional varieties have never been subjected to any such regulation for food safety or environmental impact.
Traditional methods of developing crops involve wild crosses with weedy relatives of crop plants, and many characteristics, such as resistance to disease and pests, have been routinely introduced into crop plants from their weedy ND distant relatives over hundreds of years. This cross-breeding has posed no serious threat to the environment in terms of crop invasiveness, gene flow to weeds, or biodiversity. Yet, these fears are invoked for genetically improved crops, which possess similar traits but which are developed through rapid genetic-modification processes.
The Real Benefits: In a country like India the conditions of peasants is miserable. People, who battle weather, pests, and plant disease to try to raise enough for their families, can benefit tremendously from biotechnology, and not Just from products created by large reparations. For example, public-sector institutions are conducting work on high- yield rice, virus-resistant sweet potato, and more healthful strains of cassava, crops that are staples in developing countries.
This technology feeds millions and helps the poor sectors of society like peasants, vegetable sellers, low income families to reduce their poverty. Biotechnology improvements are in development that would allow hybrid rice to be colonized by bacteria that fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Plants that are able to fix nitrogen improve productivity in the absence of synthetic redelivers (which are typically unavailable to poor farmers). Further, improved tools such as certification, developed by bio-technologists, will help in the help create more biodiversity and, perhaps, will even re-create extinct crop traits.
Molecular biology techniques, such as the use of DNA markers and genomics, are providing valuable insights into the dynamics of biodiversity in crop plants, and thus helping our efforts to understand crop evolution and relatedness between different varieties, thus enabling the intelligent use of the available biodiversity. But has some contradictions. The anti-biotech activists incorrectly suggest that the integration of chemical pesticides and seed-use has led to lower returns for farmers.
To support that argument, they point to one obscure study, while ignoring other, far more comprehensive and respected studies that report increased net returns and reduced chemical use. To take one example of lowered costs: Improved production economics, the introduction of crops spliced with a gene that causes them to produce a natural insecticide (Bat), and herbicide-resistant crops, have forced tremendous competition in the herbicide and insecticide markets. Prices of many herbicides and insecticides have been slashed by more than 50 percent in these markets.
Such price reductions have led to significant discounting of weed and insect control programs and have even benefited farmers who have not yet adopted biotechnology crops. Multinational companies have vast resources, with a huge edge in their knowledge base, and can play a constructive role in increasing production. The multinational biotech companies, on their part, should soften their position on intellectual property by providing “royalty free” licensing of their core technologies for use by public institutions such as CAR (the Indian Council for Agricultural Research) consumers such as Baja, thru deal, horseman, and raga.
Further, these companies should consider voluntarily establishing a trust fund from the profits generated by genetically improved crops, to promote biodiversity conservation and public awareness of biotechnology. A frequent fear invoked against the use of genetically improved crops is their possible impact on the environment. It is CEO friendly as it needs no or little fertilizer. It is three times as productive, thus decreases the pressure to cut down forest lands for agricultural expansion Critics of biotechnology invoke the trite argument that the shortage of food is caused by unequal distribution.
Famines are not due to shortage of food it is mostly due to poor distribution of food grain. There’s plenty of food, we Just need to distribute it evenly. The development of local and regional agriculture is the key to addressing both hunger and low income. Genetically improved food is “scale neutral,” in that a poor rice farmer with one acre in Bangladesh can benefit as much as a large farmer in California. It is good as we don’t need to train farmers for this , they have to Just sow the seeds.
New rice strains Ewing developed through biotechnology can increase yields by 30 to 40 percent. Another rice strain has the potential to prevent blindness in millions of children whose diets are deficient in vitamin A. It is believed that recombinant DNA techniques constitute powerful and safe means for the modification of organisms and can contribute substantially in enhancing quality of life by improving agriculture, health care, and the environment.
Many characteristics, such as pest and disease resistance, have been routinely introduced into crop plants by traditional methods of sexual reproduction or cell culture procedures. The addition of new or different genes into an organism by recombinant DNA techniques does not inherently pose methods, and the relative safety of marketed products is further ensured by current regulations intended to safeguard the food supply No food products, whether produced with recombinant DNA techniques or with more traditional methods, are totally without risk.
The risks posed by foods are a function of the biological characteristics of those foods and the specific genes that have been used, not of the processes employed in their development Recombinant DNA techniques have already been used to develop “environmentally-friendly’ crop plants with traits that preserve yields and allow farmers to reduce their use of synthetic pesticides and herbicides. The next generation of products promises to provide even greater benefits to consumers, such as enhanced nutrition, healthier oils, enhanced vitamin content, longer shelf life and improved medicines.
Through Judicious deployment, biotechnology can also address environmental degradation, hunger, and poverty in the developing world by providing improved agricultural productivity and greater durational security. Green revolution: Though it was because of political reasons in India as us helped us. But it embowered the farmers in country particularly Punjab ,but didn’t proved much productive in some parts. The green revolution which gave us plenty of grains to feed millions of people. All this was possible due to major discoveries and technological innovations in agriculture and medicine.
Today, we are witnessing another revolution in biosciences because of some major advances in cell biology and genetics. It is believed that biotechnology in agriculture is the second Rene revolution (part II) which will speed up crop improvement . The cell which is being manipulated by genetic recombination may be a microbial cell or a cell from a tissue of a plant, animal or man with the ultimate objective of inserting or cloning useful genes to obviate the use of long and tedious process of conventional breeding often replacing it by tissue culture techniques.
The path from green revolution to gene revolution or from conventional plant breeding to genetic engineering has been filled with many significant findings. For almost a century plant breeders identified ND selected desirable characters and combined them into one individual plant. Since all characters are controlled by genes in chromosomes, plant breeding may be regarded as manipulation of chromosomes. This was done by the sorting and retention of similar chromosomes in the same plant to reach a homozygous state, a method termed pure line selection.
Alternatively, different chromosomes can be combined to form a heterozygous state, a method known as habitation conferring hybrid vigor or hoteliers. The next step was the development of genetic variability through spontaneous or artificially induced mutations. Normal plants are diploids but when plants are developed with three or more sets of chromosomes, they become polyploidy that’ tend to be bigger than diploids. Autopilots plants have genes similar to their diploid ancestors whereas ellipsoidal are combinations of genomes of two different species that differ in characteristics.
The first achievement of habitation techniques was the development of hybrid maize in 1919 which revolutionized American agriculture. The development of hybrid wheat and rice plants in asses filled the bread basket of developing countries, generally known as Rene revolution, for which DRP. Norman Burglar was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1970. The discovery that plant cells can develop into entire plants was another was coined to denote the in vitro development of plants in test tubes from calluses generated from plant parts. This led to mass production of uniform plants and revolutionized follicular in the globe.
Tissue culturing often leads to prodigies which are variable. Fusions between incompatible protoplasm (inter generic) resulted in abortive cell division and successes in regeneration was never achieved, excepting he instance of crossing between tomato and potatoes forming ‘pomades’ which can only be regarded as a laboratory success not amenable to commercial exploitation. This was of no use. With the advent of biotechnology, agriculture has reached a science based industrial state. By using recombinant DNA technology, many transgenic life forms have been engineered since 1985.
Transgenic plants belonging to both monocotyledonous plants such as maize, millet, wheat, rice and raga and dicotyledonous plants such as alfalfa, clover, peas, soybean, Montanan, potato, tobacco, cotton, flax, sugarberry and sunflower have been constructed. New varieties of vegetables and fruits such as cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, horseradish, lettuce, rape, grape, muskmelon and strawberry have been developed. The new varieties have incorporated genes capable of resisting one or more of the following: herbicides, insects, stress, frost or virus infections.
Plant biotechnology has opened up the possibility of producing artificial seeds, artificial sweeteners (sugar substitutes) and ballistics. Normal seeds have an embryo surrounded by cotyledons for initial sustenance during germination. By somatic habitation, plant embryos can be mass multiplied in fermentation tanks and each embryo is then encapsulated in a Jelly-like coat that can be called an artificial seed. Some estimates have revealed the possibility of production of 80,000 embryos per day but the cost could well be prohibitive for commercial exploitation.
Presently, several companies are engaged in reducing the cost for tallest some crops such as carrots. The most important sugar substitute is the maize based high fructose com syrup (HUFFS) known as glucose in Europe. Some estimates put HUFFS production worldwide to 6 million tones available in liquid as well as crystal form. The berries of Kate plant which is found in western and central Asia contain the protein thiamin that is 2500 times sweeter than sugar. Tate and Lyle, a I-J based sugar company had set up plantations of Kate in Ghana, Liberia and Malaysia.
Mexico has Lippie dullish, thousand times sweeter than sugar. The search for cheaper substitute to cane sugar is being pursued vigorously and in future years we may have alternate sugar sources. Setting agricultural industries generates employment for people thus generate income for them. An example of how a plant can be made to produce novel chemicals such as plastics is the transgenic Rapidness capable of producing granules of polyhydroxybutyrate (PH), a polyester which is normally obtained from the bacterium Challenges torturous.
In fact, PH is a storage product in many bacteria intended to be used as a source of energy by bacterial cells in times of nutritional stress. This plastic material is a delicate product destroyed by pH above 8 and temperatures above ICC. The product is mixed with polyhydroxyvalerate (PH) to make it flexible and mould into any shape, spun as fiber or rendered into a film. It is biodegradable to CO and H2O with no environmental hazard. The plastic is compatible with living tissue and hence can be adapted for medical purposes. It can using technology. Hush reducing poverty There are about 20 different man made pharmaceuticals involving crops that have been genetically changed to produce a range of prophylactics from cholera vaccines, herpes vaccine and cancer treatments. Potatoes seem to be ideal vehicles for the new generation of vaccines such as vaccine against E. Coli disorders of the intestine. These are friendly and easier to tolerate than injections. It also helps in animal husbandry. Thus generating income and gassing there standard of life. Milk production has also increased much due to better breeds and better medical facilities and is source of income of many households.
MAUL has been very affective in Gujarat in generating income for villagers. Because of technology the industry is set up with huge bastardization units. Phosphorus in seeds is a poor nutrient for monogamists animals such as chickens unless petals is present to release phosphorus. Feeding chickens with seeds containing the petals gene from Superfluous Niger brought about growth increases in chicken. This technological innovation known as “gene farming” not only improved the quality of chicken feed but also minimized the excretion of phosphate in the environment.
Another example is the case of sweet potato which is a staple food in China. The strategy here was to implant twin genes such as viral coat protein gene and Bacillus thirstiness genes into sweet potato to ward off diseases caused by viruses as well as insect pathogens. The crops developed during the Green Revolution were high yield varieties – meaning they were domesticated plants bred specifically to respond o fertilizers and produce an increased amount of grain per acre planted.
By selectively breeding plants that were not sensitive to day length, researchers like Burglar were able to double a crop’s production because the plants were not limited to certain areas of the globe based solely on the amount of light available to them. These technical help ,helps farmers to increase the yield and gene more income ,but main aim should be to help the poor farmers which live below poverty line and facilitating these technologies to them can be a challenge . Here policy makers have a main role to play.
Impacts of the Green Revolution Since fertilizers are largely what made the Green Revolution possible, they forever changed agricultural practices because the high yield varieties developed during this time cannot grow successfully without the help of fertilizers and fertilizers are hazardous to environment ,hence many fertilizers which were used in excess earlier are banned today because of there toxic effects. Irrigation also played a large role in the Green Revolution and this forever changed the areas where various crops can be grown.
For instance before the Green Revolution, agriculture was severely limited to areas with a significant amount of rainfall, but by using irrigation, water can be stored and sent to drier areas, putting more land into agricultural production ,thus increasing nationwide crop yields. Indri Gandhi canal is an important example which supply water to dry parts of registrar I. E western registrar. In addition, the development of high yield varieties meant that only a few species of say, rice started being grown.
In India for example there were about 30,000 rice varieties prior to the Green Revolution, today there are around ten – all the most productive types. By avian this increased crop homogeneity though the types were more prone to disease and pests because there were not enough varieties to fight them off. In order Green Revolution technologies exponentially increased the amount of food production worldwide. Places like India and China that once feared famine have not experienced it since implementing the use of AIR rice and other food varieties.
Criticism of the Green Revolution Along with the benefits gained from the Green Revolution, there have been several criticisms. The major criticism is that places like Africa have not significantly benefited from the Green Revolution. The major problems surrounding the use of these technologies here though are a lack of infrastructure, governmental corruption, and insecurity in nations. Despite these criticisms though, the Green Revolution has forever changed the way agriculture is conducted worldwide, benefiting the people of many nations in need of increased food production.
C. )AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY: The era of modernization is viewed in the entire sectors especially in the agriculture sector. Gone are the days when farmers meant a poor man laboring hard to meet his needs,specially in western countries. In the modern times, farmers are equipped tit agriculture technology that is latest and trouble free. In India before 30-40 years wells were drilled manually . Thus making agriculture a labor intensive and time taking process.
With the entry and increasing influence of the science in the traditional farming, the agriculture industry is celebrating green revolution each moment. The new technologies have helped in utilizing even the small land into loads of profit making source. Farmers whether small or big are getting more and more aware of the fact that technology is very beneficial to them and the future of the agriculture industry. The technology has resulted into the many innovative equipments that have reduced time and energy invested in to the farming.
The newest tractors are capable of plowing big piece of land at the swiftest speed and less consumption of the fuel. Also, for harvesting there are several new equipments that have reduced man power and burden. Also, agriculture technology has revolutionized the irrigating methodology. Now water is easily distributed to the remotest parts with the tunnels especially in dry and hilly areas. The booming agriculture technology serves with the latest ploughs that are light in weight and period in quality level.
Apart from cropping machines and tools, technology has made farmers to use the weather and conditions in intelligent manner. The witty style of farming reduces the losses in the farming and eliminates dependency over weather for farming. Agriculture technology is based on the scientific researches of experts and botanist who have guided the path to the modernization. Also it is all due to new technologies that are awaking farmers to cultivate new crops like bio diesel apart from the traditional horticulture and crops ultimately making farmers ICC.
The tardiest pesticides including chemical and organic are result of the upgrading agriculture technology. The agriculture technological enhancements have also compelled the retail sector to Join the agriculture sector. In the recent developments, like western countries, in developing nations like India, several NC and retail tycoons have intruded the trade.