[Reader-list] RTF (Right to Food) Articles - 3

Sat Aug 1 12:10:49 IST 2009

Link: http://www.hinduonnet.com/businessline/2001/11/06/stories/040631ju.htm

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Financial Daily
from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, November 06, 2001
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 Food exports and right to food

     K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

 IT APPEARS that New Delhi is bent on pursuing a food `export' policy,
throwing to the winds any semblance of economic rationality or financial
prudence. Most tragically, it is ignoring the very ethics of food
entitlement to every Indian. There is a false sense of euphoria and
misplaced pride when the agricultural fraternity, past and present,
considers the current spate of food `exports' a vindication of its
collective intelligence to convert the country from a ``basket case'' to a
state of food ``self sufficiency''.

 Reality, though, is in between. It cannot be denied that Punjab, Haryana,
Western Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have been able to produce more food
with the aid of ``high-input technology''. This has been unparalleled in
Asia, except for China.

 The country has been successful in producing a huge quantum of food --
never mind the enormous price it has paid to its environmental integrity and
soil health. However, should this food be channelled to a mindless export
policy or put to better use for its citizens? The Table will prove that we
are on a downhill course where food production is concerned.

 Compared to the pre-reform period, the growth in agriculture has fallen by
31 per cent in the post-reform period inasmuch as food production is
concerned. While wheat production stagnated, that of rice fell more than 40
per cent and coarse cereals -- baj ra, ragi, sorghum, etc -- showed negative
growth.

 The country is not producing enough foodgrains to make them uniformly cheap
and with the Government raising the minimum support price for wheat and rice
every year, the difference between domestic and international prices has
narrowed. For instance, Kera la, whose people consume some form rice at
every meal, grows only 25 per cent of its requirements and imports the rest
from surplus States. With the skewed Public Distribution System, even the
Above Poverty Line (APL) category consumer -- a family earnin g more than Rs
1,500 per month -- cannot buy rice if the rate is Rs 16 a kg (for the
ordinary variety) and Rs 20 plus (for the better ones). And this can be
traced to the minimum support price (MSP).

 Ironically, when the export price is pegged at Rs 5,650 per tonne for raw
rice and Rs 6,000 for par-boiled rice, which is the base price for the BPL
category of consumers -- and for the APL category at Rs 11,300 per tonne,
which translates into Rs 1 plus a kg, a daily wage labourer earning Rs 100 a
day -- who, according to the new classification, is a ``rich'' man since his
monthly earnings are above Rs 1,500 -- would not waste his time standing in
line. Between 1998-99 and 2000-01 the offtake of rice b y the APL category
from the central pool dipped by 75 per cent! That is, only one out of four
of the so-called APL category consumer was buying rice from Government
agencies. And this, when the open market price for rice rules at Rs 9 a kg.

 Hence, when the rice stock bulges in Food Corporation of India (FCI)
godowns, there is no other choice but to export or dump it in the sea.
However, the storage cost to the national exchequer works out to Rs 5 per
tonne per day. When extrapolated to the excess grain stocked above, the
buffer limit comes to about Rs 15 crore a day.

 When more than a quarter of the country's population is starving, an
unethical situation arises where food is exported at throw away prices. In
fact, it is a reverse flow of our resources, where the beneficiaries are,
besides corrupt officials and unscru pulous traders, the super-rich farmers.
That corporate clout will prevail in India on its agricultural horizon in
the days to come, is clearly signalled by Cargill India bagging the tender
to export 20,000 tonnes of wheat to the 9Philippines -- the first major
wheat consignment going to South-East Asia for human consumption.

 Except for West Asia, there have been few enquiries for Indian wheat meant
for human consumption, with the bulk selling as animal feed. Of three wheat
consignments to Iraq, two were rejected on the grounds that they contained
unacceptable levels (more th an 2 per cent) of inorganic matter (primarily
sand and stone). The consignments finally ended up in Dubai at feed-grade
rates! What a travesty of justice and a demonstration of New Delhi's
insensitivity when games are played that leave droves of Indians starving
and the subsidised (by the exchequer) foodgrains become animal feed on
foreign shores!

  Ongoing efforts to unload wheat and rice on foreign soil has its origin in
the economic restructuring agenda of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) when the APL category was pushed out of the PDS by 1996,
resulting in drastic reducti ons in offtake. Consequently, the grain load
swelled in FCI godowns. Arm-twisting tactics by opportunistic politicians
from Punjab, Haryana, AP and UP compounded the problem.

 Food for work: A sham

 To reduce the food mountains, some suggestions have been in circulation. A
survey in 105 hamlets in drought-affected areas in April-May showed that
eight persons were seeking employment on relief works for every person
actually employed. The State concer ned pleaded helplessness and the Centre
has shown little regard for the people's misery -- obviously the differing
political hues explain the divergence while the unscrupulous elements divert
the food meant for the programme for private profiteering.

 What are the alternatives?

 For the past several months, numerous articles have been published on New
Delhi's duplicity. On the one hand, the Government swears by `Swadharma',
only to throw it out of the window on domestic and foreign corporate
prodding. Food is a vital issue. If t his duality -- of food mountains on
the one hand and starving millions on the other -- is to disappear, it would
be better to stave off this ``MSP syndrome''. The fundamental principle of
support price should not be aimed at commercially underwriting or
guaranteeing sale of farm products of any quality or price, but intervening
when farmers are in distress.

 What is now being witnessed is a charade at the expense of the exchequer,
where the real beneficiaries are corrupt politicians, unscrupulous
middlemen, avaricious traders, and fat cat ``farmers''. Will ever a day dawn
when a hungry Indian can demand his right to food? We may have to go back to
the scriptures to truly understand the meaning of Annadata.

  (The author is Senior Fellow, Humboldt Foundation, Germany.)

 Related links:
Caught in the food muddle
<http://www.hinduonnet.com/businessline/2001/07/25/stories/042503ju.htm>
MSP muddle and food exports -- Boasts aside, can we make the grade?
<http://www.hinduonnet.com/businessline/2001/05/30/stories/043003ju.htm>

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