Food Security in India

Posted by Dr. R. Shashi Kumar at 10 May 2010

The food security in India facing the problems of both controlled and uncontrolled marketing deficiencies. Unless that sector is sustainable you cannot
really look for options for people to achieve food security in the immediate short or
even mid-term. Unfortunately, in the past, the food security issue was delinked from
agricultural production. Around 35
per cent world’s food insecure population lives in India and 10-15 per cent of the
total households in India are food insecure, and do not get an assurance of getting
at least two meals a day. Though PDS is a major step in bringing the food seucirty clause into the mainstream, many of the states does not get the proper support from the State itself. There are problems of health and education
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access because of the increasing expenses incurred on costly food. Landlessness
and the casualisation of labour have grown, and the seasonality of rural work has
sharpened every decade, every year. The WTO agreement also affects the food security in different way. Hence, it's now the high time to the Goverment to come out with a new strategy to secure food in India for non-secured people.

Food Insecurity and High Inflation in India finds its place in Mainstream Cinema;Movie Peepli Live Sensitively covers Farmer Suicides due to Debt Distress

India has seen a high  number of Farmer Suicides in recent times brought upon by high debt and unremunerative farming methods.India has a high percentage of its population around 70-80% dependent on agriculture which only contributes 10% to India’s GDP.With small land holdings and crops dependent on the seasonal monsoons,farmers frequently find themselves in distress.High populuation has also contributed to small  plots which are insufficient to feed a farmer’s family.Influx of foreign seeds and fertilizers has done little to alleviate the rural distress.It has led to high costs of agricultural inputs which require a high yield crop outpot everytime.India’s famour economic reforms of 1990 has failed to touch its agricultural population.Vested interests have managed to block the entry of Supermarket chains and reforms in Rural Supply Chains.This leads to high inefficiency and cornering of profits by middlemen.This has led to a large number of cases of suicides which the government has failed to stop.

Who wants to help the farmer?

          There is an inherent irony in the loan waiver package for small farmers in the country. Most of the small farmers are essentially foodgrain producers who are systemically taxed by denying them open market prices for their produce. This policy of taxation, a legacy of a closed economy, continues unquestioned even today. The recent wheat imports are a case in point.
The government first banned wheat exports to keep the domestic prices well below the prevailing international prices, and then to augment its stock for the public distribution system (PDS), it has imported wheat at nearly double the price of what it offers to the wheat growers in the country. Farmers thus took a double hit: first through the export ban and then through state-sponsored dumping. Producers of no other commodity in the country have faced such ill treatment.
The problem is systemic and two aspects of the PDS are responsible for this. First, the necessity of large-scale procurement of grains by the state makes anti-farmer policies inevitable. The enormous inefficiencies in the operation of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) compel the government to suppress domestic prices so that FCI’s procurement cost is affordable. Government does it through a ban on exports or state-sponsored dumping. 

  Milind Murugkar Tags : Posted: Fri Mar 21 2008, 23:28 hrs

               The current rate of agricultural productivity growth is lagging the world's expanding demands, according to a new report released today at the 2010 World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa. The Global Harvest Initiative's 2010 GAP Report, developed with the Farm Foundation and USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS), quantifies for the first time the difference between the current rate of global agricultural productivity growth and the pace required to meet future needs.
                Doubling agricultural output to meet global demand by 2050 will require an annual average growth of at least 1.75% in total factor productivity or TFP, says Neil Conklin, president of the Farm Foundation and author of the report. Total factor productivity is the increase in output per unit of total resources employed in production. Between 2000 and 2007, ERS estimates global ag TFP growth averaged 1.4% per year.

Rod Swoboda 

Published: Oct 13, 2010

          Making institutional finance available to every farmer is another important solution to save to the farmers from debt traps of money lenders. Where institutional finance is available, it should be made easily accessible to the poorest farmers. This calls for removing of elaborate formalities and procedures for obtaining the loans. A poor farmer would be unable to understand the complexities of procedures, he needs a simple solution for his financial needs. Effective monitoring of the disbursed funds is also required because in many cases, the poor farmer is used as a front-end while in fact the benefit of the loan is availed by a bigger land owner. In addition, monitoring is also needed to ensure that the farmers are using the funds for the right purposes.

          The dependency of agriculture on nature should be reduced. This calls for effective management of water during seasons of good monsoons. Prevention of crop failure should be the primary aim of the Government. In most cases, it is not the lack of water but the lack of proper management on the government's part that causes water shortage. A simple example for this is the recent case of the farmers in the Penna delta of Nellore District of Andhra Pradesh. Inspite of the availability of ample water for a second crop, the Government decided against permitting the second crop, in view of proposed repairs and upgradation to the reservoirs. The proposal would result in draining of precious water into the sea which could be used to the benefit of the farmers. It was only after several agitations by the farmers' organizations that the Government relented and allowed the second crop. Water management should be made more effective through inter- state co-operation on water resources, where surplus water from perennial rivers can be diverted to those regions facing drought, as it is always seen in India, where in state there is severe drought, another state has to face worst floods, such regional imbalances can be managed by effective utilization of water resources throughout the country.

             Repeated crop failures, debt hassles, lack of alternative sources of income, absence of institutional finance have left the farmers with no other solution other than ending their lives. Another disturbing trend has been observed where farmers commit suicide in order to avail relief and benefits announced by the government to support the families of the farmers who have died. This is true in the case of several farmers in Andhra Pradesh who committed suicide so that their families could atleast benefit from the Government's relief programmes.