05-06-2008, 12:58 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Bush fire </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
<b>India's self-created food crisis</b>
Admittedly, President George W Bush's statement that part of the reason for the global food crisis was newly prosperous entrants to the Chinese and Indian middle classes had begun eating more was always prone to misinterpretation. However, before a hysterical media and polemical politicians convert this into a "neo-imperial" conspiracy against India - conveniently ignoring the fact that China has seen the presidential comment in a matter-of-fact way and not bristled in anger - it would do to revisit some of the statements made by Indian politicians in the past few weeks. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, too, has ascribed food inflation to India's recent economic boom, pointing out more families are eating at least one full meal a day and families that hitherto ate one meal are now eating two. <b>Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has blamed wheat prices on changing dietary habits in the country, claiming that "south Indians eat more wheat now". </b>As remarks these are scarcely very different from those of Mr Bush, and are perhaps even more objectionable and nonchalant. Yet, there is greater glory and there are more headlines, one supposes, in attacking the American President.
The deliberate denial of discomforting domestic verities is, actually, symbolic of India's food crisis. From the Finance Minister downwards, Indian authorities have criticised the use of agricultural land in the West for biofuels - propelled by the quest to find an alternative to Middle Eastern oil. They have suggested this is a "crime against humanity" that has pushed up foodgrain prices and is keeping Indians hungry at night. The biofuels debate is a genuine one but is it also the complete story of the current food inflation? Is India being strategically indignant to cover up its own shortcomings? Consider the evidence. In the 1990s - well before the American invasion of Iraq, the surge in petrol prices and the biofuels mania - the rate of growth of population in India began to overtake the rate of growth of foodgrain production for the first time since the Green Revolution. No remedial action was taken. It was obvious that technological gains of the Green Revolution had plateaued. <b>In States such as Punjab, the liberal use of fertilisers and groundwater - part of Green Revolution standard operating procedure - was actually proving counterproductive. </b>Indian agricultural research, despite a massive bureaucracy and an impressive Government outlay, was static. The buzzing agricultural universities of the 1960s and early 1970s had gone to sleep. Farm yields were stagnant. Talk of "spreading the Green Revolution to eastern India" had been heard for 25 years but had become only an empty cliché. Using new technologies and seriously discussing genetically modified food was seen as politically incorrect, even as China went ahead and grasped modern agri-tech and dramatically increased yields.
Today, India is paying the price for this reckless neglect of an emerging agricultural catastrophe. To cite a random example, India has seen a decrease in pulses production from 14.26 million tonnes in 1990-91 to 13.38 million tonnes in 2004-05. This is despite the fact that, among all countries, it has the biggest mass of land devoted to pulses production. In refusing to anticipate increased consumption - as people ate more or, simply, as there were more people to eat in the first place - India is paying for its short-sightedness. Is the American President responsible for this? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
On dot.
The Pioneer Edit Desk
<b>India's self-created food crisis</b>
Admittedly, President George W Bush's statement that part of the reason for the global food crisis was newly prosperous entrants to the Chinese and Indian middle classes had begun eating more was always prone to misinterpretation. However, before a hysterical media and polemical politicians convert this into a "neo-imperial" conspiracy against India - conveniently ignoring the fact that China has seen the presidential comment in a matter-of-fact way and not bristled in anger - it would do to revisit some of the statements made by Indian politicians in the past few weeks. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, too, has ascribed food inflation to India's recent economic boom, pointing out more families are eating at least one full meal a day and families that hitherto ate one meal are now eating two. <b>Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has blamed wheat prices on changing dietary habits in the country, claiming that "south Indians eat more wheat now". </b>As remarks these are scarcely very different from those of Mr Bush, and are perhaps even more objectionable and nonchalant. Yet, there is greater glory and there are more headlines, one supposes, in attacking the American President.
The deliberate denial of discomforting domestic verities is, actually, symbolic of India's food crisis. From the Finance Minister downwards, Indian authorities have criticised the use of agricultural land in the West for biofuels - propelled by the quest to find an alternative to Middle Eastern oil. They have suggested this is a "crime against humanity" that has pushed up foodgrain prices and is keeping Indians hungry at night. The biofuels debate is a genuine one but is it also the complete story of the current food inflation? Is India being strategically indignant to cover up its own shortcomings? Consider the evidence. In the 1990s - well before the American invasion of Iraq, the surge in petrol prices and the biofuels mania - the rate of growth of population in India began to overtake the rate of growth of foodgrain production for the first time since the Green Revolution. No remedial action was taken. It was obvious that technological gains of the Green Revolution had plateaued. <b>In States such as Punjab, the liberal use of fertilisers and groundwater - part of Green Revolution standard operating procedure - was actually proving counterproductive. </b>Indian agricultural research, despite a massive bureaucracy and an impressive Government outlay, was static. The buzzing agricultural universities of the 1960s and early 1970s had gone to sleep. Farm yields were stagnant. Talk of "spreading the Green Revolution to eastern India" had been heard for 25 years but had become only an empty cliché. Using new technologies and seriously discussing genetically modified food was seen as politically incorrect, even as China went ahead and grasped modern agri-tech and dramatically increased yields.
Today, India is paying the price for this reckless neglect of an emerging agricultural catastrophe. To cite a random example, India has seen a decrease in pulses production from 14.26 million tonnes in 1990-91 to 13.38 million tonnes in 2004-05. This is despite the fact that, among all countries, it has the biggest mass of land devoted to pulses production. In refusing to anticipate increased consumption - as people ate more or, simply, as there were more people to eat in the first place - India is paying for its short-sightedness. Is the American President responsible for this? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
On dot.