Policymakers talk of food security but are reluctant to give universal entitlements to eradicate hunger
The 28th of May, marked as “World Hunger Day,” has come and gone but for Pannu Bai Bhil, every day is hunger day. How does someone dealing with chronic hunger view a day marking her plight? Let those of us who overeat at least take stock of a hungry India pitted against bumper crops, number crunching, technologies for profit, markets, and growth rates. The solution for hunger lies in proper distribution of grain, and not in bringing technology as the Prime Minster avers when talking of GM crops. If this government cannot prevent the huge stocks from rotting by distributing food grain adequately and equitably, other questions remain mere rhetoric.
Whenever issues of deprivation, hunger and social security are raised, the government deliberately talks of the declining Sensex, the rupee exchange, growth rates, and balanced budgets. Most innocent readers and viewers of news blame the demands of the marginalised for pulling down a rising India. Nationalist India will have to make a choice. Can we shift from fighting the ‘foreign hand' to fight the biggest enemy within — the hunger of millions? India has not addressed the unpardonable sin of letting bumper crops and huge dumps of grain rot, when millions of Indians battle with endemic hunger and lack of access to food.
Since it is a global event, a quick overview of international standards would be useful. The World Food Summit (1996) defined food security as “access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” The Global Hunger Index released by the International Food Policy Research Institute ranks India 66th among 88 vulnerable countries. Ironically farmers are amongst the millions who go hungry. A principal reason is that the economy has neglected agriculture, continuously discriminated against and exploited to subsidise the manufacturing and service sectors.
How to lie with statistics: The first method to downplay the issue is to crunch numbers, and reduce the statistics of hungry people. There are many contradictory reports and studies commissioned by the government. Conclusive figures vary. For example, according to the Planning Commission's contentious Tendulkar Committee Report, calorie consumption is calculated at 1776 calories per person per day for urban areas, 1999 for rural areas. This is much below the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) norms for the average person in India which is 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. Having already restricted the supply of subsidised food grains to BPL families, the government brought down the BPL figures from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 29.8 per cent in 2009-10. In one stroke, the government absolved itself of the responsibility of providing affordable food grain to those who, by medical standards, needed them. Yet while releasing the ‘Hungama' report (2012), the Prime Minister was shocked to find 42 per cent of children malnourished, calling it a “national shame”.
The technology fix: “The country cannot feed its hungry millions, unless there is high tech Corporate agriculture!” According to the figures of the Ministry of Agriculture, in the last three years of 2009-10, 2010-2011 and 2011-12 food grain production broke records. The country produced approximately 240 million tonnes of cereals and 17 million tonnes of pulses last year. If this is procured and distributed efficiently, it should be enough to provide the stipulated calories for the entire population of the country. Instead, there is poor procurement, and potential wastage of millions of tonnes of food grain that will rot in railway yards, mandies, FCI godowns across the country. The population that will and has benefited most from this stark inability to deal with distribution are rats! Exporting food now, far from being a solution, will only aggravate hunger further.
Technology or political will: Facts and figures proclaim surplus despite accusations that the agriculture sector pulls down growth. But, the government has been making hunger and low production the reason to push a series of techno-fix solutions. It is part of a mindset that sees the solution in Northern style Agro-Business Corporations. The balance sheet of a technological solution can now be better measured in the cradles of the Green revolution — Punjab and Haryana — where the costs to the land and water table, and dependent relationship on the financiers and agro companies were never factored in. This model, propagated across the country, spelt rapid depletion of the natural capital for farming — soil, water and biodiversity. It also resulted in indebted farmers. It is inexplicable that a set of market economy policymakers, with a commitment to cost benefit analysis, should ignore depletion of basic capital — land that produces, and the (in)security of farmers in the market. There is also the wider national impact of these agrochemicals on health.
The latest addition to this treadmill of technologies being sold to farmers is Genetically Modified (GM) crops. It represents a paradigm shift in agriculture, with the potential to affect the consumers (food safety) and farmers (livelihood) security.
GM crops are controversial all over the world. Questions have been repeatedly raised against this technology being introduced in food and farming. When Bt Brinjal was introduced, it was the first GM food crop proposed for commercial cultivation. There was public opposition from all sections of society, including the fact that the bio-safety assessment on Bt Brinjal was not satisfactory. Jairam Ramesh, then Union Minister for Environment and Forests, concluded a series of public consultations on this contested policy, with a decision to enforce an indefinite moratorium on the proposal.
Alarm bells
In fact, the assessment of Bt cotton, the only commercially approved GM crop in the country, should ring alarm bells for policymakers obsessed with the idea of increased food production through GM technology. While the area under Bt cotton cultivation has certainly gone up over the last decade, data analysis shows productivity has not significantly increased, nor has pesticide use markedly decreased. In fact, cotton productivity has been on the decline in the last five years — a period when Bt cotton covered the majority of the cotton cultivated area in the country. Far from being a technological solution to rural poverty, Bt cotton has only increased the distress of those dependent on farming, and acutely so in the semi-arid cotton belt. Costs have increased due to the appearance of new pests and others developing Bt resistance, higher water and fertilizer requirements, and no major benefit in the output. The main beneficiaries of this transfer to Bt Cotton seem to be multinational seed companies like Monsanto which have profited through patents and royalty.
Attempts to flood agriculture with GM crops — around 71 at different stages of development in the pipeline — in fact pose a threat to long-term food security. The government seems unconcerned that this technology will further shift the control of agriculture to seed companies and corporate intermediaries. There is a growing body of science that points to the risk that GM food might pose to human health and environment. What insures us against the potential disaster to life and environment when side-effects emerge a few decades later?
While hasty techno-fixes to deal with the crisis in the farming community are afoot, malnutrition and genuine problems in the agricultural sector in the country fail to be seriously addressed. Farmers committing suicide are linked to the commercial pressures of tech dependent agriculture, along with the controls of companies, the market, and credit agencies. Increasing production is not the only solution to hunger in an unequal society. The debates around the National Food Security Bill reveal the lack of political intent to use food stocks to help remove malnutrition and address inequity. While talking of food security (a much larger right than just PDS), policymakers are reluctant to grant universal entitlements of even food grain to eradicate hunger.
India is, and will be, an agricultural economy. Communities dependent on farming have tremendously difficult jobs and very low incomes. In shifting to intensive mono cropping during the Green Revolution, farmers stopped cultivating diverse and subsistence crops, undermining their own basic food security. We need to ensure that people in agriculture lead economically secure lives. A rationally calculated Minimum Support Price is non-negotiable. Agricultural workers and farmers must have the purchasing power, for their own food security needs.
If we take “hunger day” seriously, every Indian who feeds more than twice a day, wasting food, and critiquing food entitlements, should feel contrite and join the campaign for a universal entitlement through the PDS. We should take a serious look at the politics of food, and not be taken in by potentially dangerous technological solutions like GM foods. The Indian government must move from platitudes to action. Undistributed grains must be moved immediately to people through the PDS and increased universal allocations under the proposed Right to Food Bill. Can we afford to wait for Parliament debates in the monsoon session as rains soak and rot open food stocks, and farmers struggle to find the money for inputs to sow their next crop?
(Aruna Roy is a social activist. Email: mkssrajasthan@gmail.com, arunaroy@gmail.com Neha Saigal is Sustainable Agriculture Campaigner, Greenpeace India)
Keywords: Global Hunger Index, GM crops, food security bill
Relation between Food (nutrition), I.Q and earning capacity (economic
growth)
The average IQ of the country is at sub-saharan levels of 83(for
comparison, US is up at 100 and china further up at 120 IQ level).
Apparently, they have taken relatively good care of their people and
their nutritional needs.
Food ( i.e. nutrition ) and genetics plays an important role in
shaping IQ of a person.
What kind of knowledge based society (of 21st Century) we want to
become when our people are not healthy and as a result do not have
enough IQ to compete in a highly connected global village (the world).
Research show that there is a strong correlation between IQ and
country's earning capacity. (look up "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" on
wiki pedia).
one then wonders, Is it a domestic political conspiracy to keep india
and Indians at the lowest of global pyramid (at sub-sharan state
levels of human and societal development)?
Those who do not eat will always be hungry
The one who grows dont have anything to feed upon. The very correct statement and face of India. India have all the measures to store the grains but do not have the measures to send it to those for whom the storage is being done. They save the food in order to use it in the future. I have a question, future is always followed by the present, If the present is dead itself what will be done in the future..? My advice to the government and the food department will be..atleast give the damn bread butter for one day, for the next day be the needy will arrange for the bread butter itself. Instead of rotting the food and feeding it to the mice, making them more healthy, help people who belongs to your nation, atleast not for the stake of civilisation but atleast for the stake of humanity.
Although one has to agree with the stastics of hunger, there irony in socialist Vs capitalistic economy here. India has in the past 20 years or so has done away with a socialist state and adopted a market based approach. During all this time, the people who had wherewithall and access to the markets flourished. And poor gradually became poorest. Today we are trying hard to develop a neocapitalistic state, but we have not developed mechanisms to do away with the evils of capitalism. Till markets rules, there will be unfair exchange and the agri economy cannot develop. I do not agree with aversion to technology. Technology has to go hand in hand with pricing and an effective distribution.
Dear Madams, thank you for adding to the vast literature of sorry state of 'food problem' in India. It feels aghast to be eating 4 meals per day when a huge chunk of population especially children remain hungry. But why dont you suggest methods that the public at large can take up to help the situation rather than, as you rightly pointed out, to wait for monsoon session!
I have been reading such articles which do not in the least think about how horrifying the truth might seem to the reader, and most of then in The Hindu only, and so I am quite aware of this anomaly(sounds a word quite inapt to consume grimness of political corridor protracting action). But what has been long puzzling me is how to find a cure. Blaming and talking about corruption, Monsanto printing adds in national daily's editorials etc aren't my answer. Quality of the food is going to affect mental acumen of the generation which follows! NCR is crazily rich, people are hypnotized by television and farmer is dying a slow death... where am I in here? Reading more news items about same 'alarm bells' and writing comments from my office desktop.
We are living a manipulated living and, well, the can push the button any day and pull the plugs on our lives. DIGEST IT?
Excellent article on Hungry Farmers and Food Security. The Government is blind to the plight of the farmers and continues to neglect agriculture which is our vital lifeline. We have to say NO to :
Hybrid and genetic seeds
Monoculture in farming
Fertilizers and pesticides
All government propaganda in support of above
We have to say YES to :
Indigenous seeds
Multi-crop bio-diversity in farming
Improved organic manure making
Improved organic farming methods
Freeing ourselves from the market
This will only result in farming wealth and food security in the long run for the nation. Anything less, we are fooling ourselves.
Poverty and hunger are related.Purchasing power of people below poverty level needs to
be increased by appropriate employment in villages,urban slums,migrant shelters and
homes of homeless.Access to food is equally important as availability of food.Equally
important is shedding away excess food consumption and wastage.Obesity is a health
issue.
India is subject to the whims of western powers and their agencies like the IMF, World Bank and NGOs whose agenda is to maintain Western hegemony at all costs. During the period of the "cold war" the green revolution was a weapon to counter Soviet influence. The US Government is beholden to corporations like seed and pesticide producers Monsanto, the Military Industrial Complex, Wall Street and lobbyists like AIPAC. The US, on the insistence of these bodies, pressures countries across the world to apply environmental, agricultural and a myriad of other policies detrimental and disadvantageous to the well-being of those countries. Unnecessary dams instead of water conservation and the maintenance of clean waterways and GMO instead of researching and improving on the thousands of years of Indian agricultural expertise to site some. India was once the richest of countries both spiritually and materially. Let India's past inform the present to forge a great future for India and the World.
Hats off 'The Hindu'.
We are waking up. We Indians need these pushes so that we come out in the open to fight our own government.
After going through yours and miss neha's article, I found it a very targeted version of writing. The point-wise explanations of various parameters is really informative. I totally agree with your views regarding the govt. in managing the food stock and donating them to the caretakers of lord Ganesha. Since the graph of poverty is on continuous rise, the 2020 dream definitely seems foggy in nature.Mam,in my regards customization of policies should be done at very ground level rather than making it more idealistic in nature.I personally feel very disheartened yet optimistic that some day the infinite locks hanging on the doors of FCI ( food corporation \ "corruption" of \ "in" India) will open in order to bring some light in those myopic eyes, still living in darkness and are miles away in gaining any awareness.
I am groveling by thinking how and when our government fortifies its
stand to deal with hunger,which has showing infallible attitude day by
day. Agriculture is our innate rights.In 21st century our government
deludes with the hungry Indian by sprung up new technology, which
evens a serious threat to Public heath and Environment.Our Government
should moratorium its platitude;rather it should work on hasty
approach. They must wake up from nap and make a robust policy to bring
the hunger count down. Being part of BRICS they should learn how
Brazil tussles with poverty by making clarion food distribution
system. But in India we hold the system,but it is amiss.Our system
does not provide food to the last mile.It’s obscure to know what
confronted our government to get the proper channel to reach hungry
mouth.The solutions lie here with us is to make proper functionally
bodies at Panchayat level to ensure enough food grain reach to hungry
mouth.Let’s call on more NGO's into this forum.
Is it not an irony that a person in the NAC -a Group which without
any accountability- which has been THE Policy Makersfor the Govt.IS finding something "NEW" There in nothing NEW in this article. Is the writer trying to distance herself from the failures
of the Govt.controlled by the Chairperson of NAC
what a irony those are dying by hunger who feed others.
Why farmers are no going for diversified crops? why they are limited
to crops like wheat and rice only.Farmers with few lands don't want
to take risk as invested return is highly unpredictable. However
farming in India is highly diversified in Punjab living standard of
framers are bit high compared to than that of West Bengal i think
policies regarding agro industry must not be universal but should be
area specified.
I agree with many of the authors' views, however there is an element
of naivety. Yes, we are an agrarian society, and that ought to be our
primary focus. However, we cannot survive in a globalised society
following the same farming techniques used over millennia, and we
can't all be farmers. That is not to support this GM nonsense in any
way, but I suspect the green revolution was necessary. I do also
support a universal PDS. Considering that we already have the food
grain available, it should not burden the exchequer. I suppose the
perceived issue is that, even if the political will for grain
distribution on a mass scale were apparent, the quantity of grain
available depends heavily on the harvest lottery, and there is a
danger that once a precedent is set, any failure to satisfy the
requirements on the same scale will be met with even more anger. Or
another, more cynical, reason could be a drop in the price of grain
which will be seen as anti-market, which won't be tolerated...
Unless government put Agriculture and Health Care on top priorities, there is grim chance of any improvement in future. Just because poor farmers cannot protest , government is overlooking this sector. Private sector should come up in front and give a valuable solution to this problem. Now a days very less hope on government.
Mr.Ratnesh Dubey, a reader of the HINDU has asked a question
"What I can do to correct it? as person, as a citizen of India." Everyday there are lakhs of readers who are fed up after reading news and articles in newspapers. My advice for Mr. Ratnesh is "Ignore what has been written by Mrs Roy. Take care of your village - native or ancestral. Make your village free from hunger. Just ascertain "how many families or persons are suffering from hunger in your village?" Identify them and see whether they are really hungry when they go to bed at night. If yes, then try to take suitable measures i.e. help them to get wheat from ration shop or under the Antyodaya scheme.
These days,I only visit The Hindu to comment derisively as the newspaper only seems to present leftish and hence playing populist side of the narrative without applying common sense. Had it been the same way with the rest of the economy, we would have been stuck where we where in 1991. Although the liberalization regime freed other commodities(both Agricultural and industrial) to the whimpsical demands of the politico-bureaucracy, the essential food commodities still remain under the quasi-socialist policies where entrenched interests will ensure that farming community remain low skilled,illeterate and low technology sector. There is neither encouragement for private initiative (scaremongering is allowed to stop and progessive action of legislation) nor any effort to move people out of agricultural sector where there is not only abundance but also overcrowding of labour bursting at its seams resulting in low incomes and hence malnutrition.Seudo economists only worsened it more.
After the production of vegetables, the story is still the same..
The producers cannot get it to the market with any efficiency or in good condition;
nor get good returns for their efforts. Middlemen eat up more than 64 percent of
the profits and exploit farmers.
So even with vegetables, the government needs to immediately improve collection,
cold storage, transfers, distribution and ensure that the farmer gets his due in a
transparent way.
Milk production can be increased by controlling erosion with small scale local soil
and water conservation methods (rather than spending mega bucks on giga dams),
and increasing 'gomala' common grazing lands at grassroot levels in every village.
Every decision of the union government is large scale and central, which directly
whips away the control of the poor farmer over his traditional knowledge systems
on infrastructure and lands.
I am groveling by thinking how and when our government fortifies its
stand to deal with hunger, which has showing infallible attitude day
by day.Agriculture is our innate rights.In 21st century our government
delude with the hungry Indian by sprung up new technology,which even a
serious threat to Public heath and Environment.Our Government should
moratorium its platitude,rather it should show us a hasty
approach.They must wake up from nap and make a robust policy to bring
the hunger count down.Being part of BRICS they should learn how Brazil
tussles with poverty by making clarion food distribution system.But in
India we hold the system,but it is amiss.Our system does not provide
food to the last mile.It’s obscure to know what confronted our
government to get the proper channel to reach hungry mouth.The
solutions lie here with us is to make proper functionally bodies at
Panchayat level to ensure enough food grain reach to hungry mouth.Lets
call on more NGO's into this forum to work.
Thank you for Simple & lucidily wrote article
There are two main issues: a) Improvements in agriculture productivity strongly supported by vastly improved storage and distribution system.This has been messed by present government.
b) Universal PDS means subsidy. Even if only 40% of 1.2 Billion=480 Million, people opt for PDS and government grants 1 Kg/day and Rs 10 per KG it will work out to 3650/person/year. This works out to 3,650x480 Million= 175,200 crores or 1.75 trillion rupees. This is almost equal to total subsidy bill.
The authors have not given any indications as to how this much money can be generated.
Well the Article is very well written. It is showing the actual
condition of poverty in India. In the last couple of years India
showing a very good growth rate but on the other hand there is no chang
in the condition of poor people. Govt's policies and the corruption
making poor more poor.
In India still 40 million people living on one time food whereas food
grains which are stored in open to rot. There is average 50 million ton
of food grain rotted every year due to mishandling and non availability
of closed stored space. To implement the food security bill govt. need
to allocate sufficient fund to the food security of India so that they
can built the storage space and not a single ton of food grain should
wasted. If we can save this we can fill the hungry stomach of Indians.
And the crime which we are doing to the humanity could be avoided.
We have to improve PDS system so that right amount of food grain should
reach to the right people. We have to make it corruption free. Jai
The author of the article never replies an email about the number of people suffering from hunger in her own ancestral village. It has become a fashion for Mrs. Aruna Roy to use data reports prepared by IFPRI or other world organisations who are expert at manufacturing reports on India's hunger. Such organisations never visit even a single village in India. We need to have a regulator who can have control social activists like Mrs Aruna Roy who never tell "how much children are suffering from malnutrition in her own village or how many people sleep hungry at night in her own village or in the native village of his mother or her husband?
As we expected to our government, they should take a decision on
hunger.It's a realm where we Will have to work with governing body. In
our major Function a lot of foods have been waisted. If we controlled
than a large number of people are getting their meal. Albeit authority
is responsible for providing Food to all citizens. So he has to improve
his PDS system, review on agriculture Policy and good maintenance of
grains.
I don't understand the PM's strategy of addressing poverty. Transfering money to their bank or PO accounts or by hand instead of PDS. It is yet another attempt to deprive poor of their right to life.
Right to food should be given serious thought and the SC should intervene in it since it is actually the part of fundamental right which is mentioned in article 21- right to life.
Misleading article. The problem is that it is hard to discuss these issues objectively in India given the level of populist screaming and shouting and moralistic posturing. First, a very small percentage of people in India suffer from hunger. I teach economics in University of Queensland and a student from our university did a survey in a slum in Kolkata - a detailed survey on the prevelance of hunger. The % of people who are food insecure turned out to be 12.5%. But then why is the child malnutrition rate so high? As it turns out, this problem has nothing to do with people not having access to cereal/staples like rice and wheat but it has to do with eating a poor quality diet. For example, we know on the basis of NSS data the the rich and middle class in India consume LESS calories per-capita than the poor - yet they have a superior nutritional status because they eat a higher quality diet- less rice and wheat and more vegetables/fruit/milk.
What I can do to correct it? as person, as a citizen of India.
Modern technology by itself is not bad but GM alone is no silver bullet:
1. GM increases reliance on a few large suppliers who control the prices. This
financial dependence on a handful of companies should make us skeptical.
2. GM tends to promote monoculture with a handful of HYV used which is
dangerous in case conditions (weather, pests) are such as to render the used
variety vulnerable. Farmers may also be tempted to plant multiple sowings in the
same season to recover costs, depleting soil.
3. HYV or GM may give us grains with more nutrient, but that in turn means that
they require more nutrients, i.e. more fertilizer, ruining soil and budgets.
4. It makes no sense to grow high-vitamin rice, then age and polish it losing 90%
of nutrient value because we in India want the rice to look nice. Studies have
shown that switching to whole-grain rice could allow feeding 400-500 million
more people worldwide.
And as noted above, we still need to get the food to the hungry first!
Brilliantly written article. Most Indians living in cities don't know
how food reaches their table Nor is the government willing to let the
people know what is happening at the farm level. The role of the
farmer in India is hardly known to the people. We have been boasting
of record Wheat grain output for the past couple of years and the
world keeps telling us on our face not to waste the food that we have.
Lack of decision to let the grain be exported has increased the
storage problem. It's not just bad politics or bad administration. A
huge chunk of the blame should be off loaded on us the indifferent
citizens of this country. Yes we are a bunch of Selfish and
indifferent people who don't care about anything except ourselves.
Every citizen in this country is responsible for farmer deaths.
As long as the government keeps its focus only on industrial development whereas negelecting the agricultural sector(which provides 17.2% of the GDP) there is no hope.While people bask in the glitz and galomour of IPL millions go hungry.While crores of money is stashed away in foreign banks millions are undernourished.
And we still say "SHINING INDIA"!!
I am well aware of the plight of the farmers and i think they should now resort to age old barter system. The government mechanism is incompetent to take care of the farmers produce and so I think farmers shall facilitate themselves to create a chain of exchange amongst their own community and get vegetable in exchange of wheat, just to say. Atleast they would not die out of hunger after selling off the grains / crops to the govern at minimum support price.
I do not get how could rotting of grains be justified by economics against starvation of millions.
Its high time and policy makers especially economist and gold medalist like Dr. Manmohan and Montek Singh Aluwalia should remenber their oaths and evaluate how much they have fulfilled it.
Thanks for uttering and pointing out the truth 'India is and will be
agricultural economy'. A country's well being mean its people's well
being. For India although more than 60% are dependent in agriculture
but gaining dismally lower amount of income. Even worse increasingly
lesser number of youth of our generation is becoming disinterested in
building a 'career' in agriculture, including youths from the farmers'
families. Hence our food security is in danger.Shall we start trying
to eat CDs and DVDs? Or shall we fight to ensure our food security and
agriculture as a whole, which is moving towards coma.
Government has become fond of taking irresponsible steps. Just read about train number 339 and ill effects of so called glorious green revolution (in the week, life line). We have habit of adopting any technology for short term gain without thinking about long term effects. Couple this with the ongoing policy paraysis continuing right now and self - aggrandizement in which current government in living, I see no hope for any solution in near future.
The reason for huge hunger in india seems apparent, the Distribution
system and storage. Ergo incorporating the Modified Genetics and growing more food doesn't fit the required scenario. Eradicating hunger could become much easier if the classification of indian population made more diversified ie. rather classifying in just two class it must be categorized further in three or four categories corresponding to their income and so the subsidies made while food distribution according to their purchasing power.
I would like to thank Surendra for the commendable job of expressing the issue,no matter how dire it is,into such creative portraits that one can construe very easily.I specially have an affinity for the caricatures that very well depict the need of the hour.kudos to you for such a marvelous feat.
Despite bumper production of food grains our people go hungry, it is only the policy of government to blame. For government it is ok to rot grains in railway yards and FCI godown rather than to distribute grains to needy. We are not hunger due to less food availability but due to proper distribution to needy. Government must ensure this as food for all is right of all citizen of India.
Just got an opportunity to see "Mother India" two days back and this
article today. The movie depicted how much a farmer's family suffers to
have even two square meals a day. One of the most touching movies ever
made in our history. 50 years hence when on side we boast of record
productions year after year and on the other the same storyline being
redrawn yet again !! Hunger can make even a sensible mind into a curse
for the society. This will definitely have serious social consequences
in near future unless path breaking steps are not taken into account.
Everything from alleviation of poverty to industrial development depends on good governance. Its high time government realizes that their policies one after another is turning out to be a disaster. If a policy correction is not taken at this juncture , it will have a serious impact on our economy , more so on poor and downtrodden.
this article is true antique
yes , i agree there is a policy implementation failure.do we grow for
rat who are been fed on the foodgrain in godwons?.we grow for our
people who remain hungry after growing an ample amount... gm crops can
be called a way out..but cannot be a means to end. we need go for
cluster silos..
every village should be given funds to construct storing space..gram
panchayat should be given the charge to find the poor ,set nutrition
norms..as the administration is decentralized .. procrument of
foodgrains should also be in same order..after distribution the
surplus can be transferred to another village ,from village to
district.and an index can be maintained in the productivity increased
and ecofriendly techniques used ......
The first fundamental requirement, really the lifeline of a country is a grave concern for all Indians.A really necessary thing for survival ,this should be dealt with Gandhiji's Talisman. Equal distribution based on the concern for talent ,ability should be established firmly within the roots of our social structure.Without solving the problem of hunger,the laws of the land are meaningless.There is no utility of freedom and rights for an individual without satisfying hunger.No one can eat or drink freedom .
The article and the stand taken almost mirrored my feelings.
It fails reason to think how govts compete to roll out provisions, tax exemptions, facilities etc to the corporations all the while saying how helpless it is to support the agriculture sector, which is the life-blood of this nation.
Even a fraction of the effort that the govt takes for the foreign corporations should better the farms by many a mile...
As the article rightly points out we as a nation specialize in mouthing platitudes against poverty while doing nothing for it. We so often talk about how 70 percent of India lives in the villages, yet we do nothing to alleviate their condition. Our movies glorify the farmer yet in reality our policies ensure that they are forever living in poverty. India can hardly be said to be shining when millions go hungry every day. The bigger crime is of course that we even grow food for these millions but a careless Public Distribution System ensures that it never reaches them. Introducing GM crops will only make things worse. If you grow more food where will you store them. They will just end up rotting like all the other food grains.
It is right that government must distribute the grain which is stored in open to rot, but by using PDS it would be just another scam which will never come in light.There are so many leaks and too much corruption in this government system as it just transformed into a business which making profits for officers and politicians but not for poors.Our PM is somewhat right in this as he advocates direct transfer of money into the accouts of people via ADHAR system and sideling the PDS.Govt. has to develop a private parallel system to govt's PDS to make distribution effective and removing the middleman business who are the causing sadness at farmers end by purchasing at low cost from them and selling to customers at high profit. India has to allow 51 per cent FDI in retail to overcome on this problem.
food is just dream for millions . food rot in godowns what a irony
Even in the Hindu, very few writers say anything hard hitting and talk
what is most important. This article in one such rare pieces.
'India is, and will be, an agricultural economy.' is the most important
and hard truth that every youth must gulp down their throats. India's
hope of sustaining itself lies in intelligently improving agriculture
and ensuring everyone is fed properly. It is not in IT and definitely
not in that worthless building on Dalal Street.
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