Sunday Reading
New Delhi, 2 May 2009
Right To Food
RAISE HOPE, LIMIT POVERTY &
HUNGER
By Dr MM Kapur
Our Lord Vishnu used to grant boons when he was well-fed
and content. We now have a culture of holding free bhandaras on family celebrations and festivals
to earn a boon out of satisfying others’ needs.
Science tells us that under nutrition (UNN) and starvation
impact the body machine in a negative manner. Systems of the body fall prey to
disorders, till life itself is under threat. Food security is an important
indicator of a nation’s vitality. It is defined as “Reliable
cost/availability of sufficient quantity and quality of nutritious food for a
population”
In its 2002 report the Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO) stated that 24% of the Indian population is undernourished and the other
1/5th suffers from chronic hunger. Five years hence, FAO noted: “record grain
harvests and the yield was 2100 million metric tonnes.” If all the cereals
grown had been distributed equally across the 6.6 billion world
population and used as food there would have been no crisis. The cereals
alone would have supplied everyone amounts of calories and proteins with about
30% left over.
In
reality, the world-over it is estimated that about 923 million people are undernourished,
1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty and over 3 billion live in less than
$2 per day. What are the reasons for this food insecurity?
Over
the past 20 years, world food production has risen steadily at over 2% a year,
while the rate of global population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. Clearly,
population is not outstripping food supply. The real reason is that people are
too poor to buy the food that is available. Sadly, we are seeing hungry people in
greater numbers than before—even when there is food on shelves and stores.
What
then are the causes that result in food shortage and price rise? For one, cereal
stock is being diverted in many countries as livestock feed, sweetener (i.e. high-fructose
corn syrup), raw material for plastic, and feedstock for fuel in the form of
ethanol. An estimated 100-million tonnes of grain per year are being redirected
from food to fuel. Filling a tank of an average car with bio fuel, amounts
to as much maize (Africa's principal food
staple) as an African person consumes in an entire year.
Another reason is the changing food habits i.e. increasing non-vegetarianism
among people. Seven kg of grains are equivalent to one kg of beef. In addition,
the rise in oil prices has increased the costs of fertilizers, majority of
which require petroleum or natural gas to manufacture. Because natural gas can
substitute for petroleum in some uses, the increasing prices for petroleum lead
to increasing prices for natural gas, and in turn for fertilizers.
Moreover, speculation and future trading have also
contributed substantially to the rise in prices of various essential
commodities including food items. Another factor is environment, which leads to
reduction in crop production. Drought, heat wave, unseasonal rains, cyclone and
diseases such as stem rust can play havoc with crops. Besides, large areas of
croplands are lost every year due to soil erosion, water depletion and
urbanization. Around 60,000 sq km per year of land becomes severely degraded
and turns into wasteland that it adds to the crop supply problem.
Though
the above points are relevant, in the Indian scenario inadequacy of the public
distribution system (PDS), exhaustion of buffer stock as a part of
globalisation and rapid opening up of the agricultural sector to foreign
competition, which is vastly subsidized foodgrain, are specific issues leading
to the food crisis.
In
July 2002, India
was at an all-time high 63.1 million tonnes of food grain stocks with the Food Corporation of India
(FCI). This exceeds the requirement for food security by about 20 million tonnes.
Yet over 200 million people go hungry and 50 million are on the brink of
starvation. Regrettably, the existence of food stocks above buffer requirements
has not translated into availability.
Worse,
the WTO agreement on agriculture has unfortunately made developing countries
like ours more committed to marketing of agriculture than developed nations like
the US,
which have continued to maintain their high level subsidies. This has made
agriculture in India
less profitable, discouraging farmers from the field and resulting in reduction
of production.
A look at excerpts of an
interview with Union Minister of Agriculture Sharad Pawar by TV anchor Karan
Thapar, on the issue of food security is telling:
Pawar: "As representative
of the Government, I know better than the papers. Suppose I purchase wheat from Punjab and
Haryana and if I have to sell it to the entire South India,
my
yearly storage charges and my transport charges alone cost me Rs 1,150 to Rs
1,160 per quintal. My import price from Australia
in southern India
is somewhat close to Rs 950. It is my responsibility to protect the interests
of the consumer, and for the sake of protecting the interests, I have to build
up my buffer stock, and essentially in southern India. For the sake of building the
buffer stock, in the case of an eventuality, I have no choice, I will import
from anywhere”.
Thapar: Professor MS Swaminathan,
the father of Green Revolution in the country, says that India is facing
second agrarian crisis. Professor Utsa Patnaik says India has become the republic of hunger. Do you agree with
them?
Pawar: “I don't say that we are a republic
of hunger. But it is
true that investment in the agricultural sector in the last five-seven years,
both public and private, has come down. This has affected the sector.”
Well,
there are over 230 million people suffering from hunger or undernourishment in India,
representing 27% of the worldwide hunger-stricken population! No other nation
has so many people suffering from chronic malnutrition.
Unfortunately,
the developed nations refuse to eliminate their outrageous agricultural
subsidies while imposing rules of international trade on rest of the world.
Their voracious transnational corporations set prices, monopolise technologies,
impose unfair certification processes on trade, and manipulate distribution
channels, sources of financing, trade and supplies for the production of food
worldwide. They also control transportation, research, gene banks and
production of fertilizers and pesticides.
It
is this unfair trading world that globalisaton and the WTO has led our poverty-ridden
citizens into. However, we can be fair within our borders: recognizing that
food at affordable price is a human right. This is what one Gandhi we know
would endorse. Parties can only ask for the boon of vote if they
provide this human right.
With
limiting of poverty and hunger hope will return. The thinking voter has an
awesome power. Political Parties will have to reinvent themselves to meet the
expectations of the thinking man. Sixty years is a long time and the aam aadmi’s patience has limits. --INFA
(Copyright,
India News and Feature Alliance)
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