04-02-2008, 10:03 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Looming food crisis </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
UPA's wrong priorities to blame
<b>That India may be heading for a food shortage signifies a sizeable failure of policy that has grave implications for food security</b>. It was but in the recent past that the country was on a collective high, with mounting food stocks lending credence to the belief that India has permanently solved this problem. In 2002, foodgrain stocks available with the Food Corporation of India were at an all time high of 62 million tonnes against the annual requirement of about 20 million tonnes. Yet, these surpluses have proved illusory and concealed the harsh reality that the situation with food production is perilous. Available Government figures for food production alarmingly reveal that there has been not just stagnation in the per capita foodgrain production, which is down to the level it was in the 1970s, but a decline. If in 1979, at the height of the Green Revolution, per capita availability of pulses and cereals had gone up to 476.5 grams per day, the corresponding figure in 2006 was 444.5 grams per day. The case with pulses is worse, with the per capita net availability today almost half of what it was in 1951. These statistics reveal that the Government's interventions in agriculture have been a failure for they have done nothing to foster growth and productivity. As a result, farm output has registered zero growth, even though overall agriculture has grown - though at lowly rates of about two per cent. This means that there is a steadily growing gap between supply and demand, which is likely to turn critical if corrective steps are not taken. <b>It must never be forgotten that even in the best days of large food-stocks, mass hunger had never been eroded, with perhaps 200 million people severely underfed and a quarter of them on the verge of starvation. </b>
<b>The emerging statistical picture shows how a crisis may be approaching, with factors beyond control, such as the unpredictable international market.</b> In recent years, India has been forced to import wheat, though there has not been enough available in the world market to satisfy demand. It will be unacceptable if in the future the country is again reduced to accepting foreign handouts as it was during the PL-480 days. It is sad that the UPA Government has allowed this situation to fester despite being in the saddle these last four years. It cannot be that the situation was hidden from it, especially considering that an 'able economist' heads the Government. While a second Green Revolution has been so obviously a necessity, the Government has taken no meaningful steps to encourage it. <b>It has frivolously wasted its energies in still-born projects such the nuclear deal but has ignored fundamental aspects of the economy without which national security and national pride are meaningless. </b>
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
UPA's wrong priorities to blame
<b>That India may be heading for a food shortage signifies a sizeable failure of policy that has grave implications for food security</b>. It was but in the recent past that the country was on a collective high, with mounting food stocks lending credence to the belief that India has permanently solved this problem. In 2002, foodgrain stocks available with the Food Corporation of India were at an all time high of 62 million tonnes against the annual requirement of about 20 million tonnes. Yet, these surpluses have proved illusory and concealed the harsh reality that the situation with food production is perilous. Available Government figures for food production alarmingly reveal that there has been not just stagnation in the per capita foodgrain production, which is down to the level it was in the 1970s, but a decline. If in 1979, at the height of the Green Revolution, per capita availability of pulses and cereals had gone up to 476.5 grams per day, the corresponding figure in 2006 was 444.5 grams per day. The case with pulses is worse, with the per capita net availability today almost half of what it was in 1951. These statistics reveal that the Government's interventions in agriculture have been a failure for they have done nothing to foster growth and productivity. As a result, farm output has registered zero growth, even though overall agriculture has grown - though at lowly rates of about two per cent. This means that there is a steadily growing gap between supply and demand, which is likely to turn critical if corrective steps are not taken. <b>It must never be forgotten that even in the best days of large food-stocks, mass hunger had never been eroded, with perhaps 200 million people severely underfed and a quarter of them on the verge of starvation. </b>
<b>The emerging statistical picture shows how a crisis may be approaching, with factors beyond control, such as the unpredictable international market.</b> In recent years, India has been forced to import wheat, though there has not been enough available in the world market to satisfy demand. It will be unacceptable if in the future the country is again reduced to accepting foreign handouts as it was during the PL-480 days. It is sad that the UPA Government has allowed this situation to fester despite being in the saddle these last four years. It cannot be that the situation was hidden from it, especially considering that an 'able economist' heads the Government. While a second Green Revolution has been so obviously a necessity, the Government has taken no meaningful steps to encourage it. <b>It has frivolously wasted its energies in still-born projects such the nuclear deal but has ignored fundamental aspects of the economy without which national security and national pride are meaningless. </b>
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