India at present finds itself at the centre of a paradoxical situation: mounting foodgrains coexisting with a massive hunger. The year 2011 is all set to witness a bumper harvest of foodgrains. The Union Ministry of Agriculture has estimated the countrywide yield of foodgrains at 2,321 lakh tonnes, the second highest of all times. Of this, the rice harvest was estimated at 940 lakh tonnes and wheat at 815 lakh tonnes, a record.
But, oddly enough, the bumper harvest is not going to be happy news. Years of apathy towards agriculture and food supply is posing storage challenges. As of now, the total capacity available in the FCI warehouses for storage stood at less than 300 lakh tonnes. An estimated 170 lakh tonnes of foodgrains are stored in tarpaulin facilities. And shamefully, thousands of tonnes of foodgrains are rotting under the open sky, due to lack of space to store it. While millions of rodents are making a feast over it, around 20 per cent of Indians go to sleep every day without food.
In the recent Parliament session in March, the Rajya Sabha member Mr A K Ganguly warned that the country is sitting on a “grain bomb” as the country is not ready with sufficient infrastructure to store the foodgrains. He said while countries like Russia and China are facing crop failures, India has a fortune of reaping good harvest. “Let us not convert fortune of plenty into calamity,” he said. The CPI (M) Parliamentarian Ms. Brinda Karat showing samples of rotten wheat and rice in the House, questioned as to why foodgrains are rotting in the FCI godowns. The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee admitted the lapse of the government. “It is the fact that we could not create surplus storage capacity to our requirement. I do admit,” he said.
CURSE OF THE PLENTY?
Recently, the TV channel CNN-IBN has reported as to how thousands of tonnes of rice at a place called Khamano in Punjab was burnt to ashes. The Khamano residents informed that the rice had been stored for the last five years in the open and there had been no lifting of the stock. Over the years, the rice gradually rotted away, and the soaring heat of this summer made the grain to catch fire. Worse still, there are tens of thousands of tonnes more of rice in an area of over a kilometre which is likely to meet a similar fate. According to reports obtained through the RTI Act, improper storage facilities and poor maintenance across the country have destroyed a mind-boggling 10,688 lakh tonnes of foodgrains over the years.
The million-dollar question now is: Whether the abundant grains available this year will reach the poor? One cannot be optimistic because the Public Distribution System has been dismantled by the government. The PDS was established to maintain stability in the prices of essential commodities across regions, to ensure food entitlements to all sections of people at affordable prices and to keep a check on private trade, hoarding and black-marketeering. Ever since Neoliberalism was unleashed in the country in the 1990s, the Universal Public Distribution System was replaced with a “Targeted” Distribution System which would supposedly “reach the needy”. So, no pragmatic mechanism exists now, to ensure the foodgrains to reach the masses.
Then, where will the plentiful foodgrains reach? Not a difficult answer. Remember what happened to the “record surpluses” in 2001-03? Those years, millions of tonnes of grain were exported at prices lower than those offered to our own deprived people. That grain fed the cattle in Europe, while millions of people in our country were starving. Therefore, the bumper yield this year will at some point of time might well be usurped by the private traders at throwaway prices. Or else, the grains will be left in the open to rot. Thanks to neoliberalism (which advocates privatisation of food supply), the government finds it more profitable to let the grain rot, rather than organise it to reach the people.
The dismantling of PDS has led to serious undernourishment. The average daily net per capita availability of foodgrains between 2005 and 2008 is a dismal 436 grams per Indian. That’s less than it was half a century ago. In 1955-58, it was 440 grams. In the case of pulses, the fall is more severe, around 35 grams in 2005-08 from nearly 70 grams in 1955-58.
The Supreme Court was quite right in lambasting the Union government. “In a country where admittedly people are starving, it is a crime to waste even a single grain,” said the furious Court. The Supreme Court bench had, in the same instance last August, asked the Centre to ensure construction of a big godown in each state besides separate godowns in different districts and divisions within the states, and expedite the computerisation process of the Public Distribution System (PDS) to check pilferage and corruption. The measures suggested by the apex court included: (a) increase in the quantum of food supply to the population below poverty line; (b) opening fair price shops on all 30 days a month; and (c) distribution of foodgrains to the deserving population at a very low cost or no cost.
FARMERS BORE THE BRUNT
Ever since the government disowned the responsibility of distribution of food grains, it also discouraged the procurement policy by offering MSP (Minimum Support Price) to the farmers. The peasants were allowed to come directly under the control of agricultural trading monopolies. Over the past two decades, economic reforms – which included the removal of agricultural subsidies and the opening of Indian agriculture to an increasingly volatile global market – have increased costs, while reducing yields and profits for many farmers, creating widespread financial distress. As a result, small farmers are often trapped in a cycle of insurmountable debt, leading many to take their lives.
Why the export of foodgrains is not helpful to our farmers? The International foodgrain prices have fallen or remained low as the developed countries have continued their very high levels of direct and indirect subsidies to agriculture despite the stated intentions of the AOA (Agreement on Agriculture) in the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Shockingly, during the same period, the Indian government removed QRs (Quantitative Restrictions) on imports for a whole range of agricultural and agro-based goods as well as progressively reduced import tariffs. Thus, our farmers had to compete with imports which are cheaper because of subsidies given to their farmers, even as domestic cultivation costs have been going up because of higher fuel costs, higher fertiliser prices and other input costs.
IMPENDING TASK
It is two years now since the UPA-II government pronounced its decision to legislate a National Food Security Act (NFSA). The President of India, in her first address to the joint session of parliament, proclaimed that her government would enact the legislation within its first 100 days.
Any meaningful food security in our country can come about only through a universal public distribution system that ensures that every single household in the country (both BPL and APL) receives 35 kg of foodgrains a month at Rs.2 a kg. This would automatically reinforce the procurement policy. Farmers would feel encouraged to produce foodgrains, if its purchase is guaranteed by the government. This will also make the foodgrains to literally escape from the web of speculative trade. The argument that India does not have sufficient resources to distribute foodgrains at low rates is untenable. The monies looted through the 2G spectrum scam alone (leave alone all other scams) would be more than sufficient to provide a meaningful food security to our people.