A paradox of plenty

A paradox of plenty

The Green revolution has ensured that we have a surplus stock of food grains. Yet a huge segment of the population goes to bed hungry. The brains behind the grain revolution blame the politicians for the food that is rotting in the godowns. Pallava Bagla reports

There is plenty of food and the Indian government just does not know what to do with the extra food grain it has in its silos even as about 270 million Indians still go to bed hungry. Described aptly as `the paradox of the plenty', this should be a cause for shame to the nation.

It might sound strange but India has had a record harvest of 206 million tonnes last year and the buffer stocks have crossed an all-time high of 40 million tonnes and still a huge populace which some estimate to be almost equal to the entire population of Europe still does not have access to two square meals a day. This was the strange backdrop in which the first Science Congress of the new Millennium was held in the capital for the first time within the precincts of an agricultural institution with a leading agricultural scientist presiding over the deliberations.

The strange paradox was even highlighted by the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee while delivering his inaugural address when he had said ``today, we are facing a shortage not of food, but of facilities to store food'' and had aptly cautioned ``if the brain does not develop properly in nearly one-third of our children who are under nourished, how will we create those young minds that are essential to build the India of our dreams in the 21st century?''

After many deliberations both from scientists and farmers the single message emanating from the gathering was it is the politicians who are failing in their duty since the other two parties namely the agricultural scientists and farmers have both effectively delivered the food surplus that was urgently required by the country. Taking the bull by the horns, Devinder Sharma, a food policy analyst and President of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, New Delhi told the gathering ``it is the shear lack of a strong political will which is leaving these millions hungry and for that the blame should be squarely taken by the politicians who should hang their heads in shame on seeing these starving millions''.

On his part M.S. Swaminathan, the noted agricultural scientist and literally the Father of Green Revolution, says that ``there is no doubt that the scientists have delivered but there is just no time to become complacent as this surplus could easily be wiped out if the 270 million hungry Indians get the purchasing power to buy the food which is over flowing in our coffers''. He adds ``there is no point in blaming each other for this paradox of the plenty and this blaming game should come to an end once and for all'' since today ``the lack of technology is no excuse for lack of proper development of the country''. The only way out he emphasises is to ``provide employment guarantee for the disenfranchised''.

``It is the lop-sided development of India that has led us into this funny paradoxical situation,'' says Gurdev Khush, the chief rice breeder at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) at Los Banos in Philippines who has fathered over 320 different rice varieties and it is estimated that more than half of the rice that is grown in the world has at some point or the other been tinkered by him. Describing it as an ``unfortunate situation'' Khush says ``India today exports about 2-3 million tonnes of food even as over 200 million of its own citizens go to bed hungry''.

In spite of the fact that the Prime Minister has acknowledged that the time has come ``to achieve food security for all our citizens'' precious little has been done even by his own government since even the most recent initiative in food security the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, under which wheat and rice is going to be provided at Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg respectively to 10 million of the poorest families only just about touches tip of the ice berg since the remaining 260 million are left to nature's mercy.

Even though as Sharma puts it ``scientists have fulfilled their mission and today's paradox of the plenty problem is not a reflection of the weakness of science''. Still the hundreds of scientists from all over India put their heads together to come out with a vision document on food nutrition and environmental security unveiled at the Science Congress which affirms that ``hunger free India is an idea whose time has come'' and calls for a launch of a science-based crusade for elimination of hidden hunger and mal-nutrition by 2007. But, are the politicians tuned in at all!