Dear All,
Here is the matter of rumination.
Asad
Agrarian crisis and hungers fallout
Recently price rise of essential food grains is the issue squeezing the people and the main brunt is being borne by the poor people of the third world countries including India. India is facing an agrarian crisis of scary proportions after the crop abundance in the aftermath of Green Revolution. Agriculture is the most critical sector of any economy as it supports life. Its growth is recognized as the cornerstone of our national strategy for food security, rural employment and poverty alleviation. Agrarian sector remains retarded keeping the life of rural farm population in extreme misery because two third are still dependent on agriculture economy, In fact the falling agriculture wages and rising food prices, consolidation of capital intensive commercial firming have contributed to growing food insecurity amongst the poorest especially in rural areas. There was a phase when people were hungry amidst plenty but now new problems have emerged in the form
of inadequate availability of food grains. Our self-reliance on food is hampered because of policy shift towards liberalization. There were reasons of concern for rising inequality in post-1990s structural reforms.
The tribal people suffer disproportionately because of development projects such as dams, power houses, coal mines and extraction of minerals. Till now around 33 Million altogether have been dislocated from their source of livelihood. Again at rural areas endemic drought and lack of employment cause severe human problems. Those are contributing to distress induced migration in urban areas. In urban areas the hungry and malnourished which represents migrants, the homeless, displaced and informal slum dwellers are excluded from access to public services and food. Those slum dwellers live with inadequate sanitation, housing and access to safe drinking water, severely affecting food consumption and absorption.
The galloping prices and unavailability of food grains become a major problem as a result of failing productivity and lower buffer stocks. In fact that the share of agriculture in the country's GDP has sharply reduced to 18.5% in 2006-07 from 34.4% in 1982-83. Statistics with the Ministry of Food & Civil Supplies showed the wheat and rice are precariously placed. The net returns out of growing foodgrains are shrinking in most of the major high yield states like Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. The advanced estimates tabulated by the government in Feb. 08 suggested that the production of wheat in the country is set to fall by nearly one million tonne (MT). The stocks of these commodities available in government warehouses were 19.2 millions in January against the minimum norm of 20 million tones shows a sharp decline in this regard. This apart the rate of growth of food grain production actually decelerated to 1.2% between 1990 and 2007, lower than
the annual average population growth of 1.9%. Similarly the per capita consumption of cereals declined substantially. "A food crisis can not be ruled out if the government does not take corrective measures by increasing the productivity of farmers' says Devinder Sharma policy analysts.
Public investment in agriculture was already declining in the 1980s but it has become steeper in the era of economic reforms of 1990s. The shifts towards a more export- oriented economy has been a shift from subsistence to cash crops reducing the cultivation of grains, pulses and millets for household food consumption. 8 million hectares of land has been diverted away from foodgrains production mainly to export crops within a total gross sown area which is stagnant. It stresses on consumption and homogeneity of food habits. The levels of malnutrition, undernourishment and poverty remains very high and matter of food security have increased since 1990s. The declining nutritional standards for the population have an inverse relation between agriculture exports and maintaining domestic food security. Any type of shock to the system (severe drought, rapid food price rise) can precipitate visible famine. The extreme famishment is the price that poor
developing country's populations are made to pay because of structural reform, stated Prof. Utsa Patnaik. In fact structural reform brought in its wake structural violence which is very much tangible but irony is that it is not being quantified. There is a need for reverting back to crop cultivation from bio-fuels and growing cash crops and prices will certainly fall. It is subscribed none other than by Vandana Shiva, Director of the India based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Science also exuded warnings that if such trend continued for two years then they would have to face food catastrophic situation world over.
Child mortality although acute in Tribal areas it is found all over the rural areas. It is the culmination of malnutrition which is an irreversible violation of the right to live. Malnutrition, anaemia and other sort of symptoms related to low food consumption have assumed endemic form. Tens of thousands children die every year in Maharashtra itself because of lack of Calorie, mostly in the tribal areas, because of malnutrition related problems. Malnutrition compromises immunity and increases the vulnerability to fatal ailments. This leaves room for government and public health official to argue that the cause of death was not malnutrition but poor hygiene, contaminated water, harmful cultural practices (inbreeding) and so on. It is also a fact that we are among the least protein consuming country in the world and immunity is very much linked with protein consumption.
The most modest estimate by the Food and Agriculture Organisation in the India's army of hungry grew by 13 million between 1995-97 and 2000-02.. This constitutes nearly three fourths of the newly hungry across the world. Between 1993 and 1998 the rural per capita consumption of calories is estimated to have come down by as much as 300. Since then the situation has worsened with widespread malnutrition and an increased number of starvation deaths in different parts of the country.
The measures approach to withdrawing the state from the economy and has long maintained the world's largest food-based safety net, the public Food Distribution System (PDS). In the 1990s however saw a shift in the PDS away from the universal system to a targeted PDS led to the reduced level of overall size and cost of the food distribution System. PDS was set up in 1964 and distribution peaked in 1991 but it was impaired because of the price rise and targeting system. Between 1998 and 2001 APL prices were increased by 85% and BPL prices by 66%.
It may be mentioned that the targeted based identification of BPL and APL has been the source of problems rather than solution. One and half crore. BPL poor were brought under Antyodaya scheme in accordance to the World Bank prescription to separate moderately poor from the very poor. While the Antyodhya households are eligible for rice and wheat at 3 and 2 rupees. BPL households have to pay around double the amount and APL marginally less than in the open market. In this way vast majority of the poor people have been already excluded from PDS. Moreover they tried to reduce the number of the poor people through the statistical jugglery as Supreme Court also found a lot of discrepancies in the determination of the BPL and APL. It is fallacy to think that poverty fell across India from 36% to 26% between 1993 and 2000. According to Prof. Utsa Patnaik of JNU on the case of the latest census 70% found consuming less than the assigned consumption of calories.
If this criterion is to be taken into consideration, almost 700 million fall under BPL.
On food front the situation is grim. The World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned in his websites (6th April, 08) that around 33 countries were facing potential social unrest mainly because of spiraling food prices. In fact the latest abrupt rise of food prices enhances the chink of the vulnerable class world over. According to the Director of the world Food Programme who launched an appeal for an extra $500 million so it could continue supplying food aid to 73 million hungry people this year stated 'this is the new face of hunger. People are simply being priced out of food markets', he lamented.
According to him the prices of food had risen 55% since last June. But lately it further rose by 20% so now they need $700 million. It was quite obvious that era of cheap food was over. World Food Grains reserves last year were only 57 days down from 180 days a decade ago. World rice stockpiles at their lowest levels since the 1980s and the UN forecasts that exports will drop 3.5% this year. In the countries where fast growing economies like China and India consumers need more meat in their diet. The average Chinese Citizen now eats 50kg of meat a year, up from 20kg in the mid-1980s. Producing meat consumes enormous quantities of grain. For the rich obesity is the sign of prosperity but for the poor and destitute emaciation is the harsh and stern reality. Then there is global warning which brings about climate change and consequent draught which drastically curtails the production of grains. In order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions they go for the
production of bio-fuels. About 30% of this year's US grain harvest will go straight to an ethanol distillery. It is not strange that a huge amount of the world's farmland is being diverted to feed cars, not people. With US corn being withdrawn from the global market, it has created a shortage or buyers producing poultry and animal feed. Thus there is a threat to food security already posed by growing external demands by advanced countries.
The onslaught of globalization on Indian Agriculture must be resisted. The remedy could be found through revival of agricultural production is essential for reviving employment and incomes, making farming viable again and make agriculture a profitable enterprise. The array of schemes should be implemented in a forthright manner. A comprehensive poverty eradication programme needs to be put in place which should include land distribution and generation of rural employment. Combined with restoring universal public distribution, this could lift the agrarian economy out of the depression and set in motion the avenue for employment and income generation. The arable land should not be taken away for the purpose of development and industries, infrastructures and SEZ purposes because ultimately the level of food production is diminished and causing immense problems for the lives of common folk. There is still potential in India to increase food production. It
is suffice to mention here that it was the agrarian crisis which propelled the UPA government to power in the 2004 General Elections. It appeared that the incumbent government did not do something which could stem the tide of crisis. This is also a sheer case of the dilution of the democratic institutions and accountable mechanism because of the integration with global economy. Depriving poor people of their livelihood is tantamount to weakening democracy as a whole.
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Asad Bin Saif
Bombay Urban Industrial League for Development (BUILD)
Campaign, Communication and Advocacy
Mumbai- 400 050
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