The year 2008 witnessed the lowest food grain stocks in the last three decades and the world had consumed more food than it produced. The Indian economy has been growing rapidly at an impressive annual rate of about 8.5% over the last few years, yet India is the home for 20% of the chronically hungry of the world and 24% of its population is undernourished1. This is mainly attributable to the slow pace of growth of the agricultural sector (2.5%) in the past decade, besides the disparity in access to the resources. The ecologic and economic distress in the farming sector, manifested as the con tinuing national tragedy of farmers sui cides" and the large scale import of food grains after three decades of food self sufficiency at prices higher than that of the internal market3'4, are pointing to an impending, yet avoidable food crisis. Food security is an essential pre-requisite for national security and sovereignty.