The Food Paradox of India : Hunger a midst plenty

On the eve of Indian Independence Indian agriculture was dominated by feudal landlords and absentee landlord ism. There was widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger. India was dependent on imports for its food grain requirement. After the two severe droughts of 1965 and 1966 gave a wake-up call to India to reform its existing agricultural policy and go from an export dependent nation to a self-sufficient nation.

Ever since 1947 Agricultural sector got a step motherly treatment from the policy makers. Growth rate was upsettingly low. But after the droughts Indian policy makers understood that increasing agricultural production would help to curb the food security concerns of India along with achievement of its goal for achieving self-sufficiency. Green Revolution brought its much needed boost in the country’s economy.

During mid-1960 India adopted the green revolution with the introduction of High Yield Variety of Mexican dwarf wheat and miracle rice IR8, which lead to a remarkable growth in agricultural production. Green Revolution was adopted with a motive of reduction of hunger and reduces food shortage in the country.  It had been true that India has been able to avoid large scale famine death in post-independence era but the widespread malnutrition hasn’t been taken care of yet. Also there are starvation deaths reported every year.  Despite high growth and self-sufficiency in food production over the years, a significant portion of our population still lacks food security.

Food security here I am referring to physical as well as economic security. Where an augmentation of food grain production to meet the food grain requirement is a main goal. Along with that, making sure that the people have enough purchasing power so that they can purchase the required amount of food.  According to Food and Agricultural organization 200 million Indians are still chronically food insecure. This includes Marginal and small farmers, scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, landless labourers and casual labourers.

The elements on which an effective model to achieve food security can be achieved are:

1.       Augmenting food grain production

2.       Limited international trade

3.       Regional food security

4.       Stabilizing food prices and maintain a buffer stock

5.       Subsidized food grains through pds

Though India has been successful so far in achieving a higher level of food production. While the food production increased fourfold during the past 60 years of independence the production of coarse grains also doubled. Although the level of food production has increased in the country the level of population is also increasing. The net per capita availability of food grains had decreased too.  The main vehicle through which government tries to boost food grains production is through its operations of Minimum Support Price announced time to time. However MSP announcements above what is suggested by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Pricing is putting up questions around whole mechanism. Is it a political move or some kind of bias towards the 67% of farmer population of India? Whatever it might be it is for sure giving a flip to constantly rising food grain prices and working in favour of increasing inflation.

Maintaining a minimum and a limited presence in the world food grain market as a part of our objective to the operation of buffer stock and maintenance of food grain prices. Regional food security will be again a challenging task because; if you see the map of Indian food grain production you will see that the production is highly skewed towards Punjab, Haryana, West Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.  Rest of the states is not high producers as these states. So in order to ensure that the food grains are available to every region of the country then a string PDS system need to be established with the help of State governments and local governing bodies. For this the existing system needs to be improved by eradicating every possible loophole. Tamil Nadu stands as a good example to efficient PDS in the country.

So many schemes launched so many mechanisms in place, India being an agricultural country still India is a home to 25% hungry people of the world. Food grain production has jumped fourfold, remunerative prices for farmers and a huge buffer stock, still India is a sham in food security. The food grains spoil in the process of storage and procurement and the hungry people starve.

Professor Amartya Sen quoted, “benefits meant exclusively for the poor often end up being poor benefits”. This is often the reason why the performance of the PDS has been far from being satisfactory in many states. 67% population which is being targeted under the National Food Security Ordinance is in a dilemma if the new scheme will be better as the current system provided a family based food grains i.e. 35 kg per household per month rather than the new initiative to give 5kg per person per month. Along with the purchasing power that they are talking about looks like another slap on their face as how can 5kg suffice individual needs? Nutritional meal is totally out of question here. Hunger though not that widespread now but definitely a chronic problem even today. PDS would only be helping those who have ration cards and major population of daily wage workers and other miscellaneous workers in Urban areas do have ration card in their name that forces them to buy food from retail shops, which in turn is not helping at all.  Though the NFSO is an ambitious move that Government intends to take however within the stipulated time of 180 days it’s not possible to develop the required infrastructure to support the move.

A PPP model in this approach would answer my questions to an extent because a lot of burden is being put on Government agencies for the running of the Public Distribution System. Identification of people to be targeted, providing them with relevant documents to avail the benefits, storage and transportation facilities, procurement methods and the food grain production could only be at the optimum level if a combined effort is made in this direction. Otherwise the current situation of Hunger amidst plenty will continue forever.