Telugu NTR. (Poor farmers are not only consumers but producers and farm labourers and suffer when agricultural prices go down.) The World Bank and ADB were to follow. The latter showed in The Asian Agricultural Survey that in every Asian region, if agriculture did not diversify, the time taken to end malnutrition would be longer. This is another land mine: the poor don’t only eat grain, they also consume oil, vegetables, meat — when they can afford it — and milk and fruit. Food is not air-conditioners; consumption is unequal but all consume it. Typically, say, if the average consumption of eggs is 30 and goes up to 40, it is likely that the poor household’s consumption will go up from 10 to 14 and the rich one’s from 50 to 65. So it’s important that a programme for food security is not at the expense of but is integrated with a programme that diversifies and spreads agricultural and rural growth. Anyway, don’t fob off the hungry only with grain! We Indians said it two decades ago but now the poverty labs are dishing that out again. 

If we are smart the additional cost of the programme will be much less than if it is a stand-alone programme. Food for Work is a good idea and we are already spending a lot on NREGA. Gopal’s NGO in AP follows the Gandhian principle of giving grain in advance for building assets in the villages. We already know that the adivasi and the poor girl stay put in school if there’s a free lunch. We also know that preventive health programmes will need us to resolve anaemia in pregnant and lactating mothers. Hygiene in food is important, since energy depends not only on intake but the ability to extract nutrition from food.

... contd.