Hunger for change

We need a food policy as distinct from an agriculture policy

NIRA RAMACHANDRAN

The latest in a series of moves attempting to improve India’s food security is the lifting of controls on the storage and movement of foodgrain. A Punjab farmer is now free to sell his produce in Orissa or Rajasthan, when food stocks run short in these drought prone states. This move, coupled with the recent announcement of grain banks being instituted by the ministry of tribal affairs in over one lakh tribal villages, in order to protect the most vulnerable households against seasonal food distress and starvation, is part of this process. But, as has happened before, the lack of a broader vision may offset the good intentions behind the schemes.

The formation of a high level committee by the prime minister in July 2001, with a mandate to go into various food and agriculture related issues was the first step in this direction. However, the diversity of issues like decentralisation of procurement, review of the Essential Commodities Act, diversification of agriculture, crop insurance schemes, food for work programmes, a grain bank scheme as well as agricultural exports promotion, suggest a hastily put together package with no clear cut strategy.

Time was when hunger in India meant plain and simple scarcity of cereals. Food security and agricultural objectives were synonymous — increase production, build buffers, import to supplement when required. In an era of food scarcity, the policy served its purpose. The results are there for all to see — packed godowns, farmers waiting despondently at the mandis, and the FCI being, financially and physically, unable to cope with the surplus. Government machinery geared for decades to cope with shortages, finds the transition to dealing with the problems of plenty cumbersome.

In this context, the prime minister’s Antyodaya Anna Yojana, launched at a cost of Rs 2315 crore, to provide the poorest families with 25 kg of foodgrain per month at highly subsidised prices, tacitly acknowledges that even subsidised food is beyond the reach of the poorest of the poor. In fact, an estimated 5 per cent of the country’s population — or 1 crore families — are unable to purchase food at even BPL rates. This era, when surplus food stocks coexist with hunger, malnutrition and a large food insecure segment, clearly signals that agricultural goals are no longer synonymous with food security goals. Increasing the Minimum Support Prices annually does provide an element of subsidy for the farmer, as perhaps was the original intention but impacts adversely on the prices of rationed food. Falling off-takes of PDS foodgrain bear this out. It is obviously no longer possible to serve both the producer and the consumer through one policy. The time is now ripe for a separate food policy, one that ensures not only a hunger-free society, but a well-nourished people.

Food security was once defined as resulting from the interplay of food production, food availability and economic access in terms of purchasing power. The current definition adds another dimension — food utilisation. The proper utilisation of food is essential to food security and is determined by consumption and absorption. Consumption is affected by the distribution of food within the household. In the Indian context, this implies equal access to available food by all members of the household, especially women. Dietary practices, nutritional knowledge and caring practices are equally important. Absorption, on the other hand, is affected by external factors like the availability of safe drinking water, sanitation and health care.

A major shortcoming of the existing agriculture policy and the forthcoming foodgrain policy, announced by Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Shanta Kumar, is its exclusive focus on cereals. We need to make the distinction between cereals and food. The sharp reduction in area under pulses over the last few decades bears this out. Yet in our largely vegetarian country, pulses, legumes, dairy products, vegetables, fruit and oils, are as essential as cereals and must be planned for as part of a holistic food policy. At the moment, while our agriculture and food distribution policy focuses on cereals alone, there is a constant battle to make up for vitamin and protein deficiencies through supplements through the ICDS and Health Care Systems, with little thought given to a strategy which would some day render universal vitamin, mineral and protein supplements redundant.

What we need then is to make this shift from agriculture to food security. As Professor Yoginder Alagh put it, ‘‘to achieve food security, we need to produce less food’’. Diversification of agriculture generating more cash income may well provide the answer to food insecurity. That food security is not a priority is adequately borne out by the reaction of various chief ministers to the proposed decentralisation of procurement. Every one of them viewed the suggestion in terms of the Centre shirking its responsibility, or expressed the inability of their structures to cope. Not a single one among them saw this as an answer to the issue of diversification of crops. No one also saw this as an opportunity to provide subsidies to producers of coarse grains in the semi-arid areas of their states; a chance to diversify the range of foodgrain supplied through the PDS, to include pulses and locally relished coarse grains with great nutritive value; to restore some measure of bio-diversity to the current wheat and rice based dual cropping system; to reduce the increasing disparities in farm income between the grain-basket states and others; to give a boost to the producer of small surpluses; to promote research for better varieties of coarse grains.

The list of objectives that could be realised from this one single change are countless. Procurement, if decentralised to below state levels, could also effectively link up procurement with grain banks ensuring year-round food security to every household. This could also offer solutions to the long ignored issue of seasonality that determines the pattern of agriculture and, indeed, the pattern of life in the rural areas. Past attempts at ensuring food security had often failed precisely because this factor was ignored. Field experience shows that employment guarantee and food for work schemes are not on offer during the monsoons which, in most parts of the country, coincide with the peak starvation period, when food stocks run out.

The range of issues involved in ensuring food security is large and diverse, requiring a varied set of options. In a country where some states are wasting foodgrain due to lack of storage, while others face acute shortages, no one solution can suffice. The answer lies in a clear policy focus with specific objectives, both short-term and long-term.

The writer is a senior visiting fellow at the Institute for Human
Development, New Delhi