Kurukshetra November 2013

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The Monthly Journal

MINISTRY OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Vol. 62 No. 1 Pages 52

November 2013

CONTENTS

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CONTENTS

Supply-Side Challenges of

The Naonal Food Security Bill S. P. Singh 3

Food Security Vs Farmer Security Dr. Parveen Kumar 9

Hurdles in implemenng Food Security Bill Dr. Arabi. U, Ramya H.D 12

Food Security – A Remedy for Malnutrion K.N. Tiwari 19

World’s Largest Experiment to Feed Millions Dr. Archana Sinha 24

Food Security in India - Issues and Concerns Santhosh Kumar.H 28

Making Food Security Work Anumpam Sarma 30

Gene Revoluon-Soluon for Food Crisis Dr B.K Mohanty 33

Water Management and food Security Dasharath Prasad

Rakesh Kumar 38

Vegetable based Agripreneureship Shubhadeep Roy

for livelihood security Yerasu Suresh Reddy

Vanitha, S. M. 41

Zinc: Vital to Crop Producon and Producvity Yashbir Singh Shivay 44


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Kurukshetra November 201322

INSIDE

I

ndia has joined the league of countries who guarantee majority of its population

food grains. The government has passed the much awaited National Food Security

Bill which will ensure legal food entitlement to 75 per cent of the rural populationand 50 per cent of the urban population, across the country, at reasonably cheaper

price.

The scheme provides for distribution of rice at Rs. 3 per kilogram, wheat at Rs. 2 and

coarse grains at Re. 1, per person.

The Food Security programme, the largest in the world, guarantees the country’s

810 million poor, coarse grains, such as sorghum, pearl millet or bajra, and finger millet

or ragi , at 1 per kg. These coarse cereals are rich in minerals, especially, micronutrients

It is estimated that around 62 million tones of food grains will be needed each

year to implement the programme at a cost of over One lakh crore Rupees.

The implementation of such a programme has its own problems- relating to

both supply and distribution and the ability of India’s agriculture to cope with the

demands. We discuss the supply side of the Food Security programme and other

issues including the hurdles which the government could face to implement the

ambitious programme.

The success of the Food Security programme would also be measured by the

proportion of eligible households that actually benefit from the bill, especially in states

with a large Below Poverty Line (BPL) population.

While the programme would be affordable in the current financial year,concern has been raised by some on the fiscal pressure the spending could have

on India’s budget, in the years ahead.

It has also been argued by some analysts that growing subsidies could restrict

investment opportunities, including those in the agriculture sector.

However, there is unanimous opinion amongst policy planners and analysts that

the Food Security programme is needed, whatever the cost.

Ideally, the bill will be able to protect everyone from hunger and can make a

significant contribution to the elimination of under nutrition in the country.

The Food Security Bill has provision of free nutrit ious meals to children and

pregnant and lactating women which gives a paradigm shift in imparting nutrition

security.


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Kurukshetra November 2013 3

3

SUPPLY-SIDE CHALLENGES OF THE NATIONAL FOOD

SECURITY BILL

S. P. Singh

Removal of malnutrion and hunger from thecountry is not only socially desirable but also

necessary for improving overall economic

development, as healthy people contribute more

to the economy with their relavely higher level of

producvity and eciency. Hunger and malnutrion

put enormous cost burden on the society. A World

Bank Report states that malnutrion brings down

three percent of country’s GDP annually. Various

survey reports indicate that in spite of relavely

higher GDP growth achieved during the neo-liberal

policy regime, hunger and malnutrion among a

majority of Indian populaon sll persists. NaonalFamily Health Survey (2005-06) reveals that the

percentage of aneamic ever-married women in the

age group 15-49 has increased from 53.9 in 1998-99

to 58.2 in 2005-06 in rural areas and from 45.7 to

51.5 in urban area.

Similarly, percentage of aneamic children

has also increased from 75.3 to 81.2 in rural areas

and 70.8 to 72.7 in urban area between the sameperiods. The Internaonal Food Policy ResearchInstute (IFPRI) report on hunger ranks India at 67

out of 81 countries, slightly above Bangladesh andbelow all other South Asian countries. In Global Food

Security Index, India ranks 66 out of 105 countries.

It is in this context that the Naonal Food Security

Bill (NFSB) assumes signicance as it gives legal right

to subsidised food grain to 67% of India’s populaon

(75% of rural and 50% of urban households) and also

makes provision for nutrious meal to pregnant and

lactang mothers and children. Assuming no leakages

in the distribuon system, we can argue that the

demand-side constraints in the food accessibility of

the intended beneciaries would largely be removed

aer the execuon of the NFSB. However, supply-side constraints may have serious implicaons for

maintaining the food security. This paper, therefore,

focuses on the supply-side challenges of the NFSB.

An Overview of NFSB

In recent years, the Government of India has

taken several iniaves towards ensuring rights andentlements of cizens of the country. The NFSB isone of them. Its objecve is “to provide for food andnutrional security in human life cycle approach,


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by ensuring access to adequate quanty of quality

food at aordable prices to people to live a life with

dignity”.

It provides legal guarantee to 75% of rural and50% of the urban populaon to get ve kg foodgrains per month at Rs.3, Rs.2, Re1 per kg for rice,

wheat and coarse grains, respecvely. The poorestof the poor connue to be covered under AntyodayaAnna Yajana (AAY) and get 35 kgs food grains permonth. It also makes provision for pregnant womenand lactang mothers to get nutrious meals andmaternity benet of at least Rs.6000 for six months.As per the NSSO survey 2009-10, monthly per capitaconsumpon of cereals was about 11.35 kgs in ruraland 9.37 kgs in urban areas. Thus, the NFSB meetsapproximately 50 percent of cereal requirement ofeligible households. `The bill also empowers womenas it considers the eldest woman in the household (18years or above) as the head of the household for the

issue of the raon card. The state and district levelredress mechanisms will also be put in place andprovision of social audit and vigilance commieeswill be made to ensure accountability, transparencyand quick redressal of grievances. The State FoodCommission will also be set up. The Bill also stresseson revitalizaon of agriculture and food produconand universal access to safe drinking water andsanitaon.

The Planning Commission of India has esmatedstate-wise coverage of rural and urban householdsunder the NFSB. The percentage of eligible households

varies across states. For example, among the majorstates of India, the percentage of rural householdsto be covered under the Bill is highest in Jharkhand(86.48%), followed by Bihar (85.12%), Chhasgarh(84.25%), Assam (84.17%) and Odisha (82.17). It isesmated to be lowest in Kerala (52.63%), followedby Haryana (54.61%), Punjab (54.79%), HimachalPradesh (56.23%) and Tamil Nadu (62.55%). Thepercentage coverage of urban households will behighest in Bihar (74.53%), distantly followed by UarPradesh (64.43%), Madhya Pradesh (62.61%), Assam(60.35%), Jharkhand (60.20%), and Chhasgarh

(59.98%). It would be lowest in Himachal Pradesh(30.99%), followed by Tamil Nadu (37.79%), Kerala(39.50%), Haryana (41.05%) and Andhra Pradesh(41.14%). This clearly shows that relavely developedstates would get less number of households coveredunder the NFSB.

Current PDS in most of the states is not foundworking eciently. Planning Commission esmatedthat about 45-55% of food grains under the PDSdid not reach to the intended beneciaries. This

Bill is expected to seal leakages in the food deliverysystem through technological and administraveintervenons, such as, use of ‘Aadhaar Card’ andseng up of new accountability, transparency andgrievance redressal system. Moreover, since morethan two-third of Indian populaon, including non-poor, get legal right to have cheap food grains from

the PDS, possibility of leakages and supply of poorquality of food grains may be minimized due totheir collecve power and acon. However, majorchallenge in the execuon of the Bill seems to be theidencaon of eligible households. Under the NFSB,responsibility of selecon of beneciaries is given tothe state governments which have to nalise the listof eligible households in each village and town. Ashas been happened in the past, this me also, theremay be possibility of exclusion of eligible householdsor inclusion of non-eligible households. An ExpertGroup headed by N C Saxena esmated that 61% of

the eligible populaon was excluded from the BPLlist, while 25% of APL households were included inthe list.

Approximately 62 million tonnes of cerealsis required to implement the NFSB. In thecurrent nancial year (2013-14), under the TPDS(AAY+BPL+APL) the government has allocated nearly50 million tonnes (MT) of cereals (rice and wheat).Out of the total annual allocaon, 10.22 MT wasmade under AAY and 17.46 MT under BPL. Thus,under the current arrangement, only 27.68 MTof cereals was distributed at the much subsidized

rates. In 20013-14, economic cost of rice and wheatis esmated to be Rs.2643.61 and Rs.2010.22 perquintal, respecvely. It means that the direct costof providing one kg of rice and wheat under theTPDS to the government would be Rs.23.44 andRs.18.10, respecvely. The addional procurementas a result of the NFSB will not only put enormouspressure on the exisng infrastructure of the FCIbut also constantly increase the nancial burdenon the government exchequer. Even if the quantyof food remains the same each year, the amount offood subsidy will increase annually due to increasein the cost of food producon, distribuon andmanagement. Economic cost of food grains can bereduced if the TPDS is decentralised and ecient,transparent and inclusive delivery system is put inplace.

One of the reasons for monthly distribuon ofcereals under PDS was that poor households did nothave the sucient purchasing power to buy cerealsfor the enre season. Therefore, under the currentPDS, food grains are released and distributed under


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5

the PDS on monthly basis. Since, under the NFSB,the eligible households would get rice/wheat/coarse cereals at the rate of Rs.3/2/1, respecvely,there would be no diculty to them if they buytheir alloed quota six monthly. For example, if aneligible household in North India purchases 150kgs of wheat (its six month quota), only Rs. 300 will

be paid. This amount can easily be earned throughtwo days manual work. Problem of storing of hugequanty of cereals by the FCI may be solved if foodgrains are distributed under the TPDS twice in a yearat the me of Rabi and Kharif harvesng.

One of the key issues is that this Bill does nothave exit-clause. Only issue prices are supposed tobe revised aer three years. Our past experiencesshow that if someone is used to enjoy the benetsof any scheme, it is hard to withdraw it. The sameargument may be valid for the NFSB. It would bedicult, if not impossible, to withdraw it even aer

hunger and malnutrion are completely removedfrom the country.

The implementaon of the Bill may createmismatch between demand and supply of cerealsin the economy. Since more than one-fourth oftotal cereals will be sold through the TPDS at thesubsidized rates, there would be possibility ofdiversion of cheap cereals towards cale and poultryfeeds and thus can distorts the market. Moreover,small and marginal farmers may shi to non-cerealcrops as their requirement may be met from theNFSB. It is also feared that agriculture would faceshortage of workers as the Bill may movate theagricultural workers not to work as their foodrequirement will be easily met through TPDS. Insome regions, farmers have already feeling the heatof increasing real agricultural wages mainly due toimplementaon of MGNREGS. Labour cost is one ofthe most important components of variable cost ofculvaon. In recent years, real wages in agriculturehas increased faster than the real growth in grossvalue added in agriculture. During the last ve yearperiod (2007-11), real farm wages recorded anaverage annual growth rate of 6.8 percent, while realgrowth in agriculture was only 3.3 percent.

Supply-side Challenges

The NFSB has several challenges, such as,idencaon of eligible households, huge subsidyburden on the government exchequer, and volalityin food grains producon and prices. Our focus hereis on the supply-side challenges of the NFSB. Asreported by the NSSO surveys, direct consumponof cereals has declined over the period due tochanges in the dietary paern of the people. With

the increase in income, people diversify their

consumpon towards high income elasc livestock

and horcultural products. For instance, share

of food grains in the total food expenditure has

declined from 47.4% in 1987-88 to 36% in 2009-

10 in rural areas and from 32.6% to 29% in urban

areas, whereas, share of dairy products, eggs, meat,

sh, and vegetables has increased from 26.7% to34.1% in rural areas and from 32.6% to 36.4% in

urban areas during the same period. This makes a

strong argument that the food security should not

be limited to the accessibility of food grains but it

should be extended to the availability of livestock

and horcultural commodies. In this regards, two

points may be taken into consideraon. First, poor

households get more calories from cereals than

non-cereal food items. Table 1 shows that boom

10 percent rural and urban households in India in

2009-10 met respecvely 72.7 and 66.4 percent of

their calorie requirement from cereals, while thecorresponding percentages for the top 10 percent

households were 47.4 and 34.6 respecvely in rural

and urban areas. The table shows that there is

wide dierence between rich and poor in regard of

the per capita calories consumpon. For example,

boom 10% households in rural and urban areas

consume only 1619 and 1584 calories, respecvely,

while the corresponding calories intakes in case

of top 10 percent households are 2473 and 2511,

respecvely. This implies that poor households

consume much less calories than the minimum

prescribed norms. This makes a strong case for theimplementaon of NFSB. Second, diversicaon

of dietary paern towards meat, poultry, milk and

other livestock products would increase the indirect

demand for cereals for feed grains. Since over 67%

of populaon will be covered under the TPDS, the

direct or indirect consumpon of cereals may likely

to increase in future, raising further demand forcereals and consequently their prices.

Table 1: MPCE Decile Class-wise per capita

calorie intake and share of cereal in total calorie

intake in India in 2009-10

MPCE

Decile

Class

Per Capita Calorie

intake

Share of cereals in

Calorie intake (%)

Rural Urban Rural Urban

1 1619 1584 72.7 66.4

2 1795 1773 68.6 61.6

3 1901 1872 66.5 58.3

4 1994 1964 65.1 56.2

5 2072 2029 62.5 53.8


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6 2131 2134 61.4 51.8

7 2247 2195 59.5 48

8 2315 2311 57.3 46.2

9 2473 2511 54.4 41.7

10 2922 2855 47.4 34.6

Source: NSSO 66

th

Round 2009-10

There are several supply-side bolenecks in

the food security of the country. First is declining

the producvity of land and rising input cost in

agriculture. The chemicalizaon of agriculture has

not only degraded the precious land and water

resources, but also aected the land producvity and

quality of agricultural products. There is increasing

tendency of abandoning of agriculture by farmers

as it is no longer considered to be a protable and

respectable occupaon. Agricultural workforce has

been becoming more ageing and more feminized.

How to aract educated youths (both males andfemales) in farming acvies, especially in doing

innovaons in agricultural pracces needed for

raising producvity per unit of labour, land, water

and other inputs, is a major supply-side concern. Due

to knowledge-decit in agriculture, there is a huge

producvity gap between what the technologist gets

in the experimental farm and what a farmer gets on

his farm. Therefore, price policy driven agricultural

growth may not be sustainable if it is not properly

integrated with technological breakthrough.

The NFSB ensures quality food to the eligible

households. Quality food cannot be possible

through the on-going process of chemicalizaon of

agriculture. We have to promote organic farming

not only to provide safe and quality food but also to

maintain soil ferlity, water quality, and reduce non-

point sources of polluon of water bodies. Organic

farming could be a viable opon if government

supports farmers by protecng their farm income,

developing markeng infrastructure, pung in place

the instuon of cercaon, quality checking, and

branding, and training. Agriculture is geng huge

amount of direct or indirect subsidies. At least one-

third of these subsidies can be directed towardspromoon of organic farming. Keeping in view the

negave externalies that the convenonal farming

has generated in terms of soil and water polluon

and public health cost, the organic farming would be

more cost-eecve than the convenonal farming.

Another crical issue in food security is

increasing use of land and water resources fornon-agricultural purposes. During the last two

decades, area under non-agricultural purposes hasincreased from 21.087 million hectares (Mha) in

1990-91 to 26.513 Mha in 2010-11, a net increaseof 5.42 Mha. Contrary to this, net culvated area(NCA) has declined from 143.999 Mha to 141.579

Mha during the same period. Similarly, the shareof non-agricultural sector in the total water use

has increased from about 6 percent during 1983-87 to about 9.6 percent during 2008-12. In future,due to fast urbanisaon and industrializaon, therewould be more demand for land and water for non-

agricultural uses, thus having serious implicaons forfuture food security. Moreover, regional disparity in

the availability of land and water resources is also anissue in this context. Water and land both are the keydrivers of agricultural growth. These two inputs are

unevenly distributed across states. In some states,there is sucient area of arable land but thereis acute shortage of water (for instance western

region) and therefore per hectare producvity isquite low. On the other hand, in some part of thecountry, there is sucient quanty of water, but

size of operaonal holding is too small to introducemodern farm pracces (for example eastern region).Government of India has special focus on agricultural

development of eastern states and wants to makethis region as a future “food bowl” of the country.

There is no physical scarcity of water in this region;however economic scarcity of water along withnatural factors, such as, ood limits the scope of

potenal increase in food producon. On the other

hand, in northern state like Punjab, which suppliesboth wheat and rice to naonal pool, water has

become a scarce input due to its overexploitaon.Punjab transfers huge quanty of virtual water toothers states by supplying cereals to the central

pool.

In recent years, food prices have signicantly

increased, making food items unaordable to poorhouseholds, and at the same mes, agriculturalincome has not increased in commensurate with

the increase in the cost of culvaon, consequentlyincreasing distress among farmers. Increasing

energy prices have made agricultural produconmore expensive via raising the producon andtransportaon costs. Agricultural diversicaon

and rising energy prices have signicant impacton the food security. A high growth in horcultureand livestock products may not improve nutrionalstatus of the common masses as they have lile orno access to fruits and livestock products. Secondly,increasing consumpon of highly income-elascfood products such as meat and dairy products also


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increases the demand for cereals for feed-grains andthus cereals prices, aecng the poor households.If more quanty of grains is diverted towardsproducon of meat and dairy products, less quantywould be available for common masses for directconsumpon. The NFSB is likely to increase bothdirect and indirect demands for cereals.

Increasing energy prices would also aect thefood security. Energy prices aected the food pricesin two ways: First, rising prices of petroleum productsmovates the government and corporate sector togo for producing bio-fuels. Although, in India, grainsare not being used to produce ethanol, however, itspossibility in future cannot be ruled out. If you look atthe trends in developed countries, you will nd thatindirect demand for cereals (feed-grains and fuel-grains) is much higher than the direct demand. Theincreasing producon of bio-fuel reduces the globalavailability of food grains for consumpon and thusraises the food prices. Second, increasing energyprices makes agricultural producon more expensive

via raising the cost of mechanical culvaon, inputslike ferlizers and pescides, and transportaon ofinputs and outputs. It may be relevant to note thatthe share of mechanical and electrical power in thetotal power consumpon has signicantly increasedfrom 39.63% in 972-73 to 86.6% in 2005-06, whilecorresponding share human and animal powerhas come down from 60.37% to 13.4% during thesame period. Energy intensicaon in agriculturehas increased the external cost of agricultural

producon.

Another most crical issue in context of foodsecurity is diversion of culvated land towardswood farming. High GDP growth is leading toincrease consumpon of wood and wood productslike furniture, mber, pulp & paper. Recently, somefarmers of Punjab, Haryana, Western Uar Pradesh,Himachal Pradesh, and plains of Uarakhand havebeen gradually shiing towards culvaon of poplartrees which is turned out to be more remuneravethan the crop husbandry. It is expected that in futuremore land would be brought under culvaon of

poplar trees due to various reasons, including labourshortage, low protability in crop husbandry, and

increasing absentee land owners. Increasing indirectdemand for cereals and declining areas underculvaon may create mismatch between supplyand demand and generate inaonary pressure andconsequently the scal burden on the government.

Volality in food systems due to exogenous

shocks from weather related events or instability

in internaonal markets may compromise our food

security. If India decides to enter in the world market

as a bulk importer of food, internaonal prices would

increase to a greater extent, thus jeopardizing our

food security.

Summing Up

Given the current trend in the producvity

levels with growing pressure on water and land,

it would be a dicult proposion for the public

agencies to ensure food security on sustainable

basis. Among others, there are three key supply-side

challenges in regard of food security. First is a trade

o between food and fuel. Rising energy prices in

the world market may movate the corporate sector

to produce bio-fuels from cereals. The second trade

o is between food and feed. Increasing demand

for high-income elasc dairy, poultry and meat

products may increase cereal demand for livestockfeed and as a result, would aect the food security

of poor people who cannot aord to buy costly dairy

and meat products. However, small and marginal

farmers and landless workers, who supplement

their income from livestock acvies, may gain from

this diversicaon. Third challenge is the trade o

between food and wood

As discussed above, farmers in the north region

have been gradually siing towards culvaon of

poplar trees as it has emerged more remunerave

than crop husbandry. This may have some impact

on the food security. Apart from these challenges,increasing land demand for non-agricultural uses and

near stagnant or decline in producvity of land, water

and other resources are other supply-side challenges

which are to be properly addressed. Since possibility

of bringing addional area under culvaon is quite

limited, future demand for agricultural products,

including food, can only be met by enhancing

producvity and eciency of agricultural resources.

As, food security is not less than the naonal security;

food security system cannot be made vulnerable to

the producon and price volalies of global food

market. Therefore, policy focus must be on removingthe supply-side bolenecks by raising investment

in agricultural infrastructure, R&D, human capital,

roads, markets, storage, and processing, along with

support to organic farming and reform in tenancy

and lease laws.

[The author is Professor of Economics,

Department of Humanies & Social Sciences, IITRoorkee email: [email protected] n]


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9

FOOD SECURITY Vs FARMER SECURITY

Dr. Parveen Kumar

William Paddocks and Paul Erlich in theirbooks in sevenes had wrote that Indiaalong with Egypt and Hai would be

declared, ‘Cannot be saved’ and ‘le to starve’because the amount of aid needed to bail out theirmalnourished millions would be so great so as toleave lile for everyone else. Commenng on thestate of agriculture producon in India, the writersfurther said that Gambia and Libya would be ableto survive without immediate aid and Pakistan andTunisia would be the beneciary of US food aidonly because they made some eort to implementpopulaon control campaigns and have a sucientrobust polical structure to make them worthy of

aid. Although they knew that knew of the wheatvariees development work of Dr. Norman, but sllthey believed that even the green revoluon wouldnot be able to save India Egypt, Hai and Philippinesfrom the impending crisis.

Definitely proving them wrong theGovernment of India came out the Right to Foodby enacting ‘Food security act’ that entitlesfood to about two third of the population at anaffordable cost so as to ensure that all Indians“live a life with dignity”. The act passed bythe parliament is definitely a “landmark sociallegislation” much important for fighting againsthunger. No other country has such a provision. The

act marks a shift in approach to the problem of

food security; from the current ‘welfare paradigm’

to a ‘rights-based approach’. The legislation

confers eligible beneficiaries the legal right to

receive grain at highly subsidized prices. For a

country like India where about 250 million people

still are in the grip of hunger and malnourishment,

the recommendations of the Food security act will

definitely go a long way in achieving food security

for all. The act however puts the limit on the food

grain quota to five kilogram per person per family

subject to a maximum of 25 kg per family. The right

to food campaigns had demanded 35 kilograms

per family.

The act brings under its purview 75% of

rural households and 50% of urban households.

The beneficiaries would receive five kilograms of

subsidized food grains at the rate of rupees three

per kilogram for rice, Wheat for rupees two per

kilogram and coarse cereals for rupees one per

kilogram. Besides this, the law also entitles every

pregnant woman and lactating mother to meal

free of cost during pregnancy and six months after

child birth. The act also provides for a maternity

benefit of Rs. 1,000 a month for six months.

Every child up to the age of fourteen shall haveentitlement to nutritional needs. For children


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between six months and six years, appropriatemeal would be provided free of charge through thelocal Anganwadi to meet nutrional standards. Forchildren in the 6-14 age group, one mid-day mealwould be given free of charge every day, exceptduring holidays, in all schools run by local bodies,and government and government-aided schools up

to class eighth.

Without food all the components of social jusce are meaningless. Manjeet Singh Kang formerVice-chancellor of Punjab Agriculture University,Ludhiana says that the act has adopted a life cycleapproach as it provides a nutrious diet from prebirth to death. It has expanded the food basket byincluding in addion to rice and wheat health ornutria foods such as Maize, Jowar, Bajra and Ragi.The Right to food will also confer legal rights onwomen, children and other special groups destute,the homeless, disaster-and-emergency-aected

persons and persons living in starvaon to receivemeals free or at an aordable price.

Jean Ziegler, a member of the UN Human RightsCouncil’s Advisory Commiee, working as an experton economic, social and cultural rights, includingthe Right to Food once remarked that “In a worldoverowing with riches, it is an outrageous scandalthat more than 1 billion people suer from hungerand malnutrion and that every year over 6 millionchildren die of starvaon and related causes. Wemust take urgent acon now.” This is despite the factthat the United Naons considers the right to food

as an individual right. The United Naons commieeon Economic Social and Cultural rights denes theRight to Food as the right of every men, womenand child alone and in community with others tohave physical and economic access at all mes toadequate food or means for its procurement in waysconsistent with human dignity. In 1996 world leadersfrom 185 countries got together at the world foodsummit and rearmed the right of every individualto safe and nutrious food. The government of Indiafrom me to me has taken various steps to feed

the peoples through various safety net programmesand various policy as well as instuonal reforms. Tofulll the right to food the Government must providean enabling environment for the people to feedthemselves. It also implies three types of obligaonsof the state viz. i. Respect of the exisng access andthe state not to take any measures that can result in

prevenng such access, ii. Protect i.e. states to ensurethat no enterprise or individual deprives human ofthe access to adequate food and iii. Fulll i.e. state toacvely engage in acvies intended to strengthenthe people access to and ulizaon of resources andmeans to ensure their livelihood.

A growing world populaon and the escalanghunger and malnutrion demand immediate publicintervenon. The Right to Food is not just relatedto poverty, it is a much broader than poverty. Poordo get two square miles a day but what maers isthe quality of food. In fact Right to Food equals food

sovereignty. Food sovereignty is the right of peoplesto safe nutrious and culturally appropriate food.Arcle 25(1) of the universal declaraon of humanrights of 1948 states that everyone has the right toa standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and his family, including food. Foodand nutrious rights were subsequently rearmed intwo major binding internaonal agreements. Arcle11 of the internaonal covenant on Economic, Socialand Cultural rights (ICESR) binds the states presentat the covenant to recognize the rights of everyoneto an adequate standard of living for himself and hisfamily and also recognizes the fundamental right of

everyone to be free from hunger. India is a state partyto ICESCR. Hence there is an obligaon to respect,protect and fulll the right of food of every cizen ofthe country.

Farmer security: Where do we stand?

Dang Kim Son, Director General of the Instuteof Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and RuralDevelopment (IPSARD) has rightly said that foodsecurity in a country starts with the farmer whoprovides the food. Today we talk of making tall claimsabout record food grain producon and providingthem to the peoples at an aordable cost but there is

another side of the coin too. Those facts and gurescannot be ignored also. To what Prime minister ofIndia described as a naonal shame, the ndings ofHUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrion) Survey Report2011, which said that in 100 focus districts locatedin six states, 42 per cent of children under ve areunderweight and 59 per cent are stunted .The reportof Naonal Crime records bureau 2009 also cameout with a shocking revelaon. It put the numberof suicides in the year 2009 at 17,368 (Kumar, N,


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Kurukshetra November 2013 1 1

11

2011). The report further said that the suicidesare not region specic but are spread across India.46 farmers commit suicide every day even as thepackages are rolled out in a bid to bail out the debtridden community from the crisis. The NutrionBarometer Launched by two NGO’s ‘World visionand Save the Children’ that assess the government’s

polical legal and nancial commitments towardstackling the scourge in 36 countries which are hometo 90% of world’s malnourished children says thatin India every day 5000 children die largely due tocauses that are preventable like malnutrion and lackof a proper diet. The same farmer which once duringthe green revoluon era appeared enthusiasc anddetermined irrespecve of age now is willing to leavethis profession.

Even in agriculturally progressive state likePunjab 37% of farmers wants to quit agriculture.Denitely the percentage must have risen highnow. 95% of farming community has no access tomicronance and insurance. 56% sll borrow frominformal sources and 70% has no deposit accountin Banks. Crop insurance also covers only 4-6% offarmers. Youths are not interested in agriculture. ADecember 2012 report of the Instute of AppliedManpower Research (IAMR), a part of the planningcommission said that on an average 2,035 farmersare losing main culvators statuses every singleday for the last 20 years. Isn’t this shocking? Isn’t itridiculous to talk of providing food security when wecannot provide security to the farmers who provideus food?

Projecons say that by 2050 we would haveforty per cent more populaon than it is now. Indianpopulaon grows at 15 million in two years i.e. apopulaon equivalent to Malaysia. With the foodsecurity act in place can India produce the requiredamount of food grains in the backdrop of such a largenumber of farmers leaving farming? The answer is abig ‘No’. Without farmers security being an inbuiltmechanisim in any food security programme wecannot achieve our target. Now the biggest quesonis how to make our farmers secure.

For this we have to plug the loopholes in ourexisng agricultural producon and distribuonsystem. Agriculture has to be revamped. Lakhs oftonnes of food grains spoil every year due to lack ofadequate storage facilies. Scienc grain storageand modern storage structures should be constructedin higher producon areas. Proper storage structurescan stop the rong of food grains. An eecvedelivery mechanism to reduce the pilferage of foodgrains is also essenal. Similarly value addion andfood processing facilies have to be provided toraise the farm income of small and marginal farmers

and ulmate reducon of their dependence on foodgrain subsidies. The real problem with the Indianagriculture is that of low producvity. More than80% of the farmers are small and marginal. The smallsize of farms along with lack of quality inputs leadto low producon. All this forces the small farmersto depend on subsidized food grains as their own

producvity is low. The producvity of the smallfarms has to be improved by suitable technologicalintervenons. Suitable farming system models shouldbe developed for dierent agro-climac zones.Farmers need to be movated for diversicaon.A large of investment is required for increasing thearea under irrigaon. As per esmates a sum ofroughly Rs 1,11,000 crore would be required to boostfarm output with grain requirement increasing, onaccount of this intervenon, from 55 million tonne to61 million tonne annually. For this we have to investin agriculture to boost producon in a big way. Creditis also an important requirement in the agricultural

producon process.Although the government has started a lot of

programmes for the nancial inclusion of farmers butall those schemes are beyond the reach of farmers.Hassle free and mely availability of credit should bemade available to the farmers so that they does notfall in the hands of money lenders who charge hugerate of interests from them ulmately forcing themthe consume their lives. Climate change is anotherthreat that can severely reduce our yields. Suitabledrought resistant variees should be developed andprovided to the farmers. Farmers need to be madeaware of the migaon and adopon strategies.

Agriculture insurance is another area which needsto be looked upon immediately. Indian agricultureis said to be the gamble of monsoons. The wholeagriculture producon process is subjected to thevagaries of monsoons. Agriculture insurance shouldbe provided to the farmers for their crops. At thesame me suitable infrastructure has to be created atthe gross root level. Food security through increasedproducvity along with wise and judicious use of ournatural resources is the also need of the hour. At thesame me the agricultural sciensts have to comeout with praccal soluons to the problems faced bythe farming community

The more the secure a farmer; the more is theagriculture producon which ulmately ensures foodsecurity for all. If we are able to make a farmer secure,only then we can hope that the food is available tothe aged, the inrm, the disabled, the pregnant andlactang women and to all those who do not havethe nancial resources to get sucient food.

[Dr. Kumar writes on agriculture issues andcan be reached at [email protected]]


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HURDLES IN IMPLEMENTING FOOD SECURITY BILL

Dr. Arabi. U, Ramya H.D

India’s Food Security Bill 2013 is considered

as a landmark bill to make the right to food a

legal entlement. Ideally, the bill will be able

to protect everyone from hunger and can make a

signicant contribuon to the eliminaon of under

nutrion in the country. As the bill proposes to

provide food at a subsidised rate to nearly two-

thirds of the country’s populaon; but ending

under nutrion requires many other intervenons

related to health care, safe water, and sanitaon.

Nevertheless, some provisions of the bill will have

a signicant nutrional impact, like, children’s

entlements to nutrious food. Other provisions,such as those relang to the PDS, are beer seen

as a form of social security than as a nutrional

intervenon specically. However, the fundamental

problems of India’s malnutrion, visa-viz, 61 million

children being chronically undernourished, 8 million

children suering from severe acute malnutrion;

thus, the focus needs to be on the right to adequate

nutrion, beyond the right to food – as the bill

indicates.

In recent years despite ensuring ample

availability of food, existence of food insecurity

at the micro-level in the country has remained a

formidable challenge for India. In this context the

recently introduced Naonal Food Security Bill

(NFSB) aims to address this and marks a paradigm

shi in addressing the problem of food security—

from the current welfare approach to a right based

approach. The central pivot of the Bill is large-scale

subsidized grain distribuon to almost 1.2 billion

country’s populaon to achieve food and nutrional

security. It implies a massive procurement of

food grains and a very large distribuon networkentailing huge nancial expenditure. But the long-

term feasibility of the envisaged strategy under

NFSB need an adopon of holisc approach to

point out the major laps and hurdles in achieving

the hunger free society. This will possibly cover the

enre system of food producon, food procurement

and distribuon network exisng for achieving food

security on sustainable basis.

As the Bill in its present form throws up major

operaonal and nancial challenges, obviously it

has enormous ramicaons on the cereal economy

markets of Indian agriculture. It is important to

ensure adequate availability of grain with the public

authories to fulll the underlying obligaon in the

Bill. However, given the current trends and volality

in rates of growth in foodgrains producon and

yields, the growing pressures on land & water in the

wake of climate change, dependence on monsoon

rains needs lot of government intervenon to

augment producon further, enhance procurement,

and stock large amounts of grains to meet thecommitments of food distribuon through public


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13

food delivery system. To full these, the mechanism

of ensuring adequate possible foodgrains availability

on sustainable and stable basis needs to be explored

other than what exists now.

Inadequacies in the bill

Farmers’ bodies in India fear that the billwould lead to making the government the biggest

buyer, hoarder and seller of foodgrains. There is

a clear feeling that this would distort the market

mechanism and reduce the bargaining power of

farmers. Besides the bill also makes no provisions

for producon of food or for support of small

and marginal farmers who are food producers; of

course, a single bill cannot address all food related

issues. Small and marginal farmers have certainly

been le behind in the growth process, and

need various kinds of public support, related, for

instance to power supply, economic infrastructure,

credit facilies, land rights, and environmental

protecon. The main objecon to the bill is that it

does not specify any me frame for the rolling out

of the entlements.

The country connues with a targeted PDS,

excluding 33% of the populaon from accessing

it as a right, giving scope to large exclusion of the

poor in the country as a whole. The improved

framework of single pricing in the present bill over

the dual pricing under the exisng ‘above poverty

line - below poverty line’ system is undermined by

the exclusion of a third of the country. While the

Indian Council for Medical Research recommends

that an adult requires 14kg of food grains per month

and children 7kg; the bill provides entlements to

5kg per person per month, thus ensuring only 166g

of cereal per person per day. Also, the bill provides

only for cereals with no entlements to basic food

necessies such as pulses and edible oil required

to combat malnutrion. The bill allows the entry of

private contractors and commercial interests in the

supply of food in the integrated child developmentscheme and it also tying maternal entlements

to condions (like two-child norm) discriminates

mothers who have more children.

Concerns remain over PDS that it will

intensify corrupon. The government should

focus on producvity enhancement rather than on

subsidising food at the expense of taxpayers. There

have been many posive experiences of PDS reform

during the last few years in specic states like Tamil

Nadu, Chhasgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan,

Odisha among others. These experiences provide

a reasonably clear roadmap for PDS reform across

the country. Some elements of that roadmap are

included in the bill like inclusive coverage, clear

entlements, de-privasaon of raon shops,computerisaon of records, among others. Beyond

that it is best to leave it to the states to reform

the PDS in their own way, instead of centralising

PDS management. However, although the awed

distribuon system has made maers worse,

but, the purpose of the bill is to correct delivery

mechanism. This is one of the many reasons that

have led to malnourishment among women and

children. Most social security schemes meant

for them are either not reaching them or geng

severely diluted due to leaks in the system.

On the whole, the Food Security Bill suers

from few drawbacks:

Firstly, it does not specify/idenfy who will

come in the excluded category. In other words,

unless it decides clearly who will not get subsidised

food grain; there is the need to wait for more me

to idenfy.

Secondly, NFSB specify that 67% or 75% %

populaon of rural areas should get subsidised food

grain. But, the queson of majority of populaon

in rural areas remains being as farmers, cropsharers, agricultural labours etc already have more

than 600 kgs of wheat or rice for consumpon for

whole of the year in their houses aer the period

of harvesng is over, then such people are being

covered for subsidised food grains; thus benets

again reach to those already entled to benet.

Thirdly, a huge amount of cost of transportaon

of food grains involved which is stated to be twice

the amount of cost of procurement of wheat, then,

then the queson of why in rural areas beneciaries

are not given 600 kgs of wheat or rice by sarpanch orPatwari of a parcular village panchayat; which will

hopefully save the cost of transportaon, storage,

commission, overheads, pilferage due to rains and

rats.

In brief, the important inadequacy in the NFSB

2013 can be listed as:

Firstly, it does not specify any me frame


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for rolling out the entlements and the grievance

redressal of the states in the Bill. In fact several

entlements and redressal structure would require

state legislatures to make adequate budgetary

allocaons; hence, implementaon of the Bill may

be aected if states do not pass requisite allocaons

in their budgets or do not possess adequate funds.

Secondly, it connues with a Targeted PDS,

hence the scope for exclusion of 33 % of the poor

populaon from accessing the PDS as a right

covering the enre country as a whole.

Thirdly, although an adult requires 14kgs of

food grains per month and children 7kgs; the Bill

provides for reduced entlements to 5kgs per

person per month, thus, there is an absence of

entlements to pulses and oil in the PDS, so fails to

address the widespread problem of malnutrion.

Fourthly, the Bill connues to allow for the

entry of private contractors and commercial

interests in the supply of food in the ICDS by insisng

on specic norms related to Food Safety Acts and

micronutrient norms. However, these standards

can only be met through centralized factory based

food producon. In this regard, the Supreme Court

has ordered to keep private contractors away from

the food schemes for children, parcularly in a

take-home raon of ICDS scheme. Further, the role

of self-helf groups and their eort to provide local

food have also been ignored.

Fihly, the Bill does not have an eecve

grievance redress mechanism. The Bill ignores

the needed food delivery supervisory role at local

Panchayat or Gram Sabha level.

Finally, the Bill does not provide any agriculture

and producon-related entlements for farmers in

spite of the fact that more than 60% of the people

in this country are dependent on agriculture for

their livelihoods.

Major hurdles for the implementaon of theBill

The areas that the government needs to focus

on are procurement. This has increased to 75 mt.

But last year, foodgrains storage was 82 mt. In fact,

wheat storage alone last year was 39 mt and this

year it is expected to be 44-46 mt. Further, there

is no limit on government procurement. Hence,

the government has to procure whatever comes

into the market and that is the main challenge.

The government also brought down the wastage

from 2.5% to 0.1% (of foodgrains) over the last ve

years, but this will have to go further. Although the

government has also started an operaon called

“clean FCI” (Food Corporaon of India)—to cleanall the storage and distribuon, unl ve years ago,

the government had capacity of only 55 mt. Now

the capacity gone down; this may require few more

years to complete. Once this exercise completes,

then only it is possible to know the actual foodgrains

wastage in FCI.

The cash transfer aspect of the food security

Bill has to be introduced carefully. The government

(Food Ministry Department) can start the cash

transfer scheme only aer at least 90% of the

beneciaries have bank accounts and when thereis end-to-end computerizaon. The cash transfer

scheme, however, does not mean that ocials are

giving cash instead they will connue to procure

foodgrains, transfer and distribute them. What

the Bill proposed is that, for example, for rice the

government gives Rs.20 to the beneciary and he

can add Rs.3 from his pocket and purchase 1kg of

rice from the fair price shop (FPS). Since the system

will be computerized, a certain beneciary has

to purchase rice from the FPS, and that will get

adjusted in the quota. If the beneciary does notpurchase foodgrains with that money, aer two

months he will stop geng the cash. That is why

end-to-end computerizaon is a prerequisite for

the successive implementaon of the bill and this

infrastructure may take two more years.

The government already procures one-third

of the cereals producon. In several states like

Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,

and Chhasgarh, the states are overwhelmingly

dominant in procuring rice and/or wheat, leading

to almost a situaon of monopsony. Any furtherincrease in procurement by any state would crowd

out private sector operaons with an adverse

eect on overall eciency of procurement and

storage operaons, as well as on magnitude of food

subsidies and open market prices. This would also

slow down or even regress the process of overall

diversicaon in agriculture, and go contrary to the

emerging demand paerns in the country.


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15

The food subsidy in coming years will balloon

due to the lower central issue price of grain, a

signicant rise in the number of entled beneciaries

and the need to keep raising the MSP to cover the

rising costs of producon and to incenvize farmers

to increase producon of cereals. The exisng food

security complex of procurement, stocking anddistribuon would further expand and increase the

operaonal expenditure of the scheme given its

creaking infrastructure, leakages (which amount

to about 40 percent as per our calculaons) and

inecient governance. This raises not only the issue

of sustainability of the nancial obligaons entailed

in NFSB, but also its ecacy in trying to extend food

security.

As the report, tled “A Global Development

Agenda: Toward 2015 and Beyond,” argues that

the world has made substanal progress toward

achieving many of the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs) targets, such as halving the proporon

of people living in poverty, the progress has been very

slow on other priories for development including

global hunger and nutrion. Consequently, as we

frame the global development agenda toward 2015

and beyond these goals should include a stand-alone

goal to end hunger and achieve food security and

good nutrion, and they should advance women’s

economic empowerment, community resilience, and

eecve instuons. In this regard, the emphasis

should be on the importance of making hunger aprominent and free standing development goal. As

hunger is a universal human experience, and seng

goals to which the global populaon can relate to is

crucial to garner support and mobilize towards its

success; stunng should be a key indicator under

the hunger goal. Stunng is a powerful indicator of

hunger, and more importantly, also a key indicator of

“deep generaonal poverty.”

If we recognise that malnutrion is a mul-

dimensional problem and needs a mul-pronged

strategy, then we have to include the costs ofcreang such a rural and urban infrastructure to

tackle malnutrion of children and women at any

signicant scale, which the country will have to

aend to in due course, the nancial obligaons

under the NFSB will be much higher than are

indicated in the Dra Bill.

The Naonal Food Security Bill (NFSB) envisages

distribuon of about 61.2 mt of cereals, primarily rice

and wheat, through the exisng public distribuon

system (PDS) and other welfare schemes, cosng

the exchequer about Rs. 1,25,000 crore annually.

The Naonal Food Security Bill 2013 could be an

eecve policy instrument, or say, a game-changer

for naonal food security if the government is able

to overcome large scale corrupon and reduceleakage and wastage through computerizaon and

involving the local bodies. The learned experiences

from states like Chhasgarh and Tamil Nadu have

shown that, increased local parcipaon and

innovave technologies including smart cards and

computerized records have made food distribuon

transparent, more ecient and beer targeted.

Overall beer results can be obtained by

integrang various welfare schemes designed to

raise the wellbeing of the poor masses as revealed

from the experiences in countries such as Brazil,Ethiopia and Bangladesh. In fact, these countries

took iniaves to bundle income/food transfers

with educaon and healthcare. Hence, India may

have to consider these successive policy iniaves

so as to pullout poor themselves from poverty and

become self reliant in the coming years.

Another paradigm shi needed in India’s food

security strategy relates to nutrion security for

which the Food Bill has provision of free nutrious

meals to children and pregnant and lactang women,

which is very encouraging. But the me to diversifythe food strategy through policy changes, R&D

and investment towards more nutrient-rich foods,

including pulses, the poor are increasingly unable

to aord as it demands more paying capacity.

Although the bill focuses on food subsidies, the

government has an open door to introduce other

types of benets, such as direct cash transfers and

vouchers. Although the cash transfers have the

potenal to reduce costs and market distorons, their

success may be signicantly hindered by insucient

banking infrastructure networks especially in theremote un banked regions and the absence of well-

funconing markets and supermarkets. However,

there is no clarity about plans on how these dierent

schemes will come together and me bound. Above

all, as the internaonal experience shows that food

vouchers have led to the largest improvements in

dietary diversity followed closely by cash transfers,

while food transfers led to the largest increase in


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calorie intake, India should treat dierent types of

transfers as complementary food security tools.

This atude will allow policy makers to adjust when

and how much cash and food is transferred based

on the desired outcome, market condions and

the ability of instuons to deliver. But the current

condions and the status prevail across the countryto aain the direct cash transfer benets indicate

that, Government has to explore further needful

mechanisms to speed up the process as it require to

overcome deciencies in the provision of the Aadhar

/Smart cards to the beneciaries across the country.

While centralized planning is all right, the

government must not discourage or ignore local

innovaons; thus, it calls for the Bill should be exible

enough to accommodate local ideas, parcularly

those through the Panchayats. Therefore, all the

ongoing and any new development schemes/ projectsshould be integrated in the overall framework of

long term development perspecve of agricultural

development and welfare of the larger poor people;

which further doubts how it is possible and me

frame.

The Food Bill is a grand scheme and will cost

around Rs 1, 30,000 crore annually which is about

1.1% of GDP. For example, the economic cost of rice

to the government is about 20 rupees per kg and will

be sold to raon card holders at between Rs 1 and

3 per kilogram, which is a subsidy of 18 rupees perkilogram. A total of about 62 million tonnes of food

grain will be needed under the food bill; but even

if the grain quanty remains xed each year, the

subsidy cost will keep increasing annually because

the rising input cost to the farmers will always keep

the pressure to raise the minimum support price

(MSP). This will increase in eecve cost of the

grain to the government; surely the selling price at

the TPDS is unlikely to change and it is also likely

that because of the rising populaon, the food

grain quanty will also increase. Therefore, given

the rising costs of the scheme in coming years, itssustainability is doubul.

Suggesons

As India learns from the global best pracces of

poverty reducon, malnutrion, hunger -starvaon

and adapts them to Indian condions with a view

to tackle its food and nutrional security concerns,

which can be done by allowing enough exibility

in the NFSB to innovate and evolve into such a CCT

scheme, using the globally acclaimed experse of

India in IT and Aadhaar, to connect to and pull those at

the boom of economic pyramid. As under nutrion

jeopardises children’s survival, health, growth and

development, it also slows the naonal progress

towards development goals. Under nutrion in Indiahappens very early in life; about one-third of children

are already undernourished at birth because of

nutrion deprivaon during prenatal life due to the

poor nutrion situaon of women before and during

pregnancy. Thereaer, poor feeding, care and hygiene

pracces in the rst two years of life contribute to

compound the situaon. But to address nutrion

security, a comprehensive approach is required,

which may include a host of policy programmes like,

improving the diets and nutrient intake of children

and women; ensuring access to essenal health

services and improving hygiene and sanitaon;improving women’s educaon and decision making;

and improving poverty reducon and safety net

programmes for the most vulnerable. Hence the bill

needs to address children’s right to the correct food.

Similarly, as nutrion forms the basis for prosperity

and economic progress, it is not just an outcome

but also a driver of development and economic

growth. Hence, specic emphasis should be on the

importance of making hunger a prominent and free

standing development goal.

Since the NFSB also aims at improving the

nutrional status of the populaon especially of

women and children, women’s educaon, access

to clean drinking water, availability of hygeinic

sanitaon facilies are the prime prerequisites for

improved nutrion. Hence, it needs to be recognised

that malnutrion is a mul-dimensional problem;

hence needs a mul-pronged strategy.

It may be well noted that, in fact, this Bill is

being brought in the Parliament to enact an Act

when internaonally, condional cash transfers

(CCTs), rather than physical distribuon of subsidized

food have been found to be more ecient in

achieving food and nutrional security. Similarly,

the best pracces of ‘income policy’ approach

around the world have shown that ‘price policy’

is not an ecient device in achieving equity ends.

The evidence reveals that this has been adopted

successfully by many countries across the world like

Brazil, Mexico, and Philippines etc.


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17

Most of the over 550,000 villages produce

food crops; the rest focus on cash crops and villages

have something to sell in the market, indicang

surplus food grains. Yet, in the same village there are

hungry people; thus the queson of why can’t the

food security system use the local surplus stock to

distribute among the local hungry and poor needssoluon; which means decentralized storage of food

grains seems inevitable. Current pracse of public

food delivery system has the mechanism of deriving

food grain in the PDS shops from a centralized

warehouse located far away. So, decentralised PDS

along with its whole procurement, storage and

distribuon grain will necessitate the involvement of

the local Panchayat bodies. Hence, greater emphasis

needed based on the principle of decentralised

provision of food grains through the supervisory

control by panchayats or village republics in India.

The need also arise now to learn from the local

tradion of food grain bank which have worked

brilliantly based on the principle of sharing and

caring, where, perhaps, even in the hunger belt of

Kalahandi in Orissa, there are villages where people

don’t starve.

Finally, since the proposed bill likely to cause

heavy public expenditure burden, physical delivery

of grains in remote areas or extremely decit states

needs further nancial support may cause huge

budget decits can sll go on and if the state feels itis necessary to carry its obligaons that way, then,

necessary bold steps are to be taken to avoid wastes

in or food leakages as well to reach the benets to

real beneciaries in the country. In this context, for

instance, the recently announced policy of cash

transfers for some 29 schemes excluding food and

ferlizers’ subsidy in 51 districts in 15 states from

1st January, 2013 are some of the bold steps in the

right direcon. Besides these, it could have also been

linked to educaon as is done in Bangladesh where

school children and their families are given accessto subsidized food. Of course, in India we have the

midday meal scheme for children to improve their

aendance in schools. The bill should have also

included subsidized rates for pulses which for many

of the poorest are the only source of protein and

other nutrients.

As it appears, given the scal constraints, there

is always a trade-o between allocang money

through subsidies and increasing investments into

agricultural sector in India. Therefore, to sustain long-

term growth in agricultural producon and also toreduce poverty faster the focus of public expenditure

for agriculture needs to shi towards investments to

boost producvity rather than subsidies. In contrast,

however, NFSB is likely to shi the nature of resource

allocaon more towards subsidies rather than

investments which will be retrogressive from long

term agricultural growth and sustainable food security

point of view. This should be taken much care.

[Dr. Arabi. U is Professor and Chairman,

Department of Studies and Research in Economics,

Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri,Karnataka.574199, and Ramya H.D. Ph.D. is

Scholar, Department of Studies and Research

in Economics, Mangalore University,

Mangalagangothri, Karnataka-574199]

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

Panchaya Raj : January 2014

Rural Development Schemes : February 2014

Rural Infrastructure : March 2014

Budget 2014-15 : April 2014

Agribased Industries in Rural Development : May 2014

New Technologies in Agricultural Development : June 2014


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19

FOOD SECURITY – A REMEDY FOR MALNUTRITION

K.N.Tiwari

Food security refers to a household’s physical

and economic access to sucient, safe, and

nutrious food that fullls the dietary needs

and food preferences of that household for living an

acve and healthy life. Food security for a household

means access by all members at all mes to enough

food for an acve, healthy life. Food security includes

at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutrionallyadequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability

to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable

ways (that is, without resorng to emergency food

supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping

strategies) (USDA). The World Health Organizaon

denes food security as having three facets: (1i) Food

availability (ii) Food access and (iii) Food use. Food

availability is having available sucient quanes

of food on a consistent basis. Food access is having

sucient resources, both economic and physical, to

obtain appropriate foods for a nutrious diet. Food

use is the appropriate use based on knowledge of

basic nutrion and care, as well as adequate water

and sanitaon. The FAO adds a fourth facet: the

stability of the rst three dimensions of food security

over me.

Indicators to Measure Food Security

Food self suciency, food security and nutrion

security are the essenal components of food and

nutrion security. Therefore, food security should

ensure both adequate food availability and desired

nutrion. Food and nutrion security should go hand

in hand. Nutrion security can be dened as physical

and economic access to balanced nutrionand clean

drinking water to all people at all me. Only when

The programme when implemented will be the biggest in the world with the government spending estimated

at Rs 1.3 lakh crore annually on supply of about 62 million tonnes of rice, wheat and coarse cereals to 67

per cent of the population.


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a country has achieved nutrion security for all its

people will it have provided an opportunity for every

child and adult to express his or her innate genec

potenal for physical and mental development

(Swaminathan 1986).

agricultural producvity, hunger, poverty, and

sustainability. Hunger and poverty eradicaon

requires an understanding of the interconnecon

of these two evils. If poverty exists, then hunger,

and the malnourishment both follow it. Poor

health coupled with poor economy prevent poors

to learn, work, and care for themselves and theirfamily members. In developing countries, oen

70% or more of the populaon lives in rural areas.

In that context, agricultural development among

smallholder farmers and landless people provides a

livelihood for people allowing them the opportunity

to stay in their communies. In many areas of the

world, land ownership is not available, thus, people

who want or need to farm to make a living have lile

incenve to improve the land.

Food insecurity exists when people are

undernourished as a result of the physical unavailability

of food, their lack of social or economic access to

adequate food, and/or inadequate food use. Food-

insecure people are those whose food intake falls

below their minimum calorie (energy) requirements,

as well as those who exhibit physical symptoms

caused by energy and nutrient deciencies resulng

from an inadequate or unbalanced diet or from

the body’s inability to use food eecvely because

of infecon or disease. An alternave view would

dene the concept of food insecurity as referring

only to the consequence of inadequate consumpon

of nutrious food, considering the physiological use

of food by the body as being within the domain of

nutrion and health. Malnourishment also leads to

poor health hence individuals fail to provide for their

families. If le unaddressed, hunger sets in moon

an array of outcomes that perpetuate malnutrion,

reduce the ability of adults to work and to give birthto healthy children, and erode children’s ability to

learn and lead producve, healthy, and happy lives.

This truncaon of human development undermines

a country’s potenal for economic development for

generaons to come.

The Agriculture-Hunger-Poverty Nexus

There are strong, direct relaonships between

The Food Security Bill : Government’s Flagship

Programme for Twelh Plan

A huge percentage of the Indian populaonlives below the poverty line where geng one square

meal a day is a challenge. The food security bill aims

to sasfy this basic want and in that sense although

it encourages welfare economics, the intenon is

noble. This is what would need to be weighed against

other economic consideraons.

The Naonal Food Security Bill 2013 aims to

provide 5 kg of food grains per person per month


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21

at subsidised prices from State Governments under

the targeted public distribuon system. The eligible

households will be entled to food grains at a

subsidised price not exceeding Rs 3 per kg for rice; Rs

2 per kg for wheat and Re 1 per kg for coarse grain.

The programme when implemented will be the

biggest in the world with the government spendingesmated at Rs 1.3 lakh crore annually on supply of

about 62 million tonnes of rice, wheat and coarse

cereals to 67% of the populaon.

1.3 lakhs crores per year and as such, the increase

in subsidy burden would add to the current scal

account decit woes.

Inaonary pressures: Procurement of rice,

wheat, and millets by the government of such huge

quanes would result in less quanty available

in the open market, thereby pushing up foodgrainprices. As agriculture in India is a gamble of monsoon,

the poor or excessive raifall in a parcular year would

necessitate procurement through imports, which in

turn will again enhance prices of the foodgrains and

escalaon.

Public distribuon system and leakages:Twin

Problem The current system of distribuon through

the approximately 5 lakh fair price shops spread

across the country suers from logiscs issue of

picking up the food from the source, storage and

onward transportaon coupled with the leakageson account of pilferage, rong of grains and

logiscs ineciencies accounng for nearly 40% to

50% of the total food stock. If this trend connues,

the naon cannot aord the incremental losses

on account of addional procurement envisaged

under the Bill.

Food security legislaon to put pressure on

public nances: FICCI: Implementaon of food

security legislaon will impose pressure on public

nances and push up the scal decit to 5% of the

Gross Domesc Product in the current nancial year,

said a FICCI report. “...it will impose an addional

pressure on the scal situaon and would make

scal sustainability plan of the country dicult

to achieve. As a result, the expected scal decit

to GDP rao is 5 % for 2013-14, which is slightly

above the budgeted 4.8%,”. It said allocang food

through public distribuon system is plagued with

ineciencies and ensuring eciency in the delivery

system is required. Further, the survey said decline

in industrial output, widening current account decit

and a depreciang rupee may dampen the growth

prospects the country if adequate supporve aconis not taken.

Food security programme: A remedy for

malnutrion ? There are doubts on how eecvely

the legislaon will tackle all factors perpetuang

malnutrion in India. Though congress leaders have

ocially touted the ordinance as their chief means

to tackle malnutrion in the country, but data on

the nutrion problem suggests that the legislaon

Implicaons of Food Security Bill

A huge percentage of the Indian populaon

lives below the poverty line where geng one square

meal a day is a challenge. The food security bill aims

to sasfy this basic need and in that sense although

it encourages welfare economics, the intenon is

noble. This is what would need to be weighed against

other economic consideraons.

Subsidy burden: To gain a perspecve on the

subsidy poron, we should loo k at the per kg price

of at least rice and wheat. As per today’s price of

Government current procurement price, the prices

of rice and wheat would be approximately Rs. 13.45

per Kg and Rs. 12.85 per Kg, respecvely and at this

price the subsidy poron would be Rs. 10.45 per

kg of rice and Rs.10.85 per kg of wheat. Taking into

account the total number of beneciaries and the

quanty of foodgrains to be distributed, the burden

on the exchequer is projected at a whopping Rs.


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is inadequate to deal with certain facets of the

issue. The ordinance currently spulates ve kg of

foodgrain, classied as “coarse grain” (including rice,

wheat, and millets) per person per month. However,

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines

spulate at least 16 kg for adults and seven kg for

children. The ordinance also fails to provide accessto the enre basket of nutrients necessary to

eecvely improve the nutrion status of the target

populaon.

The ordinance specically provides for free

meals to pregnant and nursing women (six months

aer childbirth) along with children up to 14 years,

through local ‘angan wadis’ (primary healthcare

centres). These free meals can help pregnant

women gain weight and maintain it as they nurse.

It will consequently increase weights at birth. More

than a fourth of all newborns are ‘low birth infants”

weighing less than 2.5 kg, according to latest UNICEF

data. A healthy infant weight is around 3 kg at birth,

according to UNICEF.

Free meals to children, especially adolescent

girls, can also increase their weight-for-age and

allow them to have healthy pregnancies and infants,

according to Kadiyala. But the success of free ‘angan

wadi’ meals is quesonable especially aer the

deaths of 22 children in Bihar who consumed a mid-

day meal made headlines this week.Calling it a “missed opportunity”, Dr. Suneetha

Kadiyala, a Research Fellow with the IFPRI

(Internaonal Food Policy Research Instute) at New

Delhi explained that the ordinance was “too focused

on calories” and not on diet diversity. According to

her “The Food Security Bill does not give access

to diversied food, which is what food security is

all about”. “This is really the grain provision bill.”

Kadiyala’s crique points to rampant micronutrient

deciency and related diseases that perpetuate

chronic undernutrion. While providing food grainswill help increase access to calories, it will not ensure

beneciaries get all important nutrients. Most cite

iron deciency and related anemia which claims

22,000 maternal deaths per year, according to ICMR.

Latest ICMR data shows 87% of pregnant women and

75% of children below ve years of age suer from

iron-deciency anemia. UNICEF data shows that

Vitamin A and iodine deciencies are also signicant

public health problems relevant to the malnutrion

challenge.

As mentioned earlier, nutrition security

should satisfy the physical and economic access to

balanced nutrition and clean drinking water to all

people at all time, the availability of clean drinking

water to meet peoples water needs should also to

be met by developing water resources. Arresting

the trend of declining ground water level due to

increasing population and thus increasing water

demand is a big challenge. As ground water

capital is not infinite, its over exploitation should

be avoided. Agriculture is the major consumer of

ground water. The water demand of agriculture

can be minimised by balanced cropping systems.

This can be done by increasing productivity of rice

based cropping systems (Rice –Wheat and Rice-

Rice) and the area, thus, saved through increased

productivity could be utilised for less water and

less nutrient demanding crops like pulses and

millets. While food security can be limited to

access to more calories and diversified nutrients,

any legislation will need to address sanitation

shortcomings to truly attack all malnutrition

problems. Diarrheal diseases, for example, create

a perpetual cycle of deteriorating malnutrition;

repeated episodes reduce the body’s ability to

absorb nutrients, according to Kadiyala. Diarrhea

claims 13% of all child mortalities, according toUNICEF. Studies continue to find links between

nutritional status and sanitation. IFPRI has found

in an ongoing exploratory analysis that access to

clean toilets is most significant when explaining

declining malnutrition in India’s ‘Hunger States’.

Ensuring Food Sef Suciency

India has made consistent progress towards

food self suciency with a record producon of

259 million tonnes (mt) in 2011-12. During 2011,

India ranked second in the world in respect of totalproducon of wheat (80.8 mt), paddy (144 mt),

groundnut (shell 5.6 mt), sugarcane (292.3 mt),

coon (seed coon 17.8 mt), vegetables and melons

(100.3 mt), fruits excluding melons (75.2 mt) and

rst in total pulses (17.1 mt). Producon of most of

the food items increased more than double which

contributed in improving per capita availability of

all food commodies except pulses thus eliminated


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23

dependence on imports, and India turned out to

be a next exporter of foodgrains. Our granaries are

not only full but due to poor storage facilies, the

foodgrains lying in open also started rong.

In spite of signicant improvement in

agriculture and allied sector, the fact lies that low

producon and low producvity are at the core of

agricultural problems in India. There is considerable

variaon in producvity levels of various districts

across and within the states. In a study of producvity

assessment of the 551 districts, the producvity/

ha/year was low in 51% of districts which did aect

the standard of living of farm households, especially

that of marginal and small farmers. About 60% of

the gross cropped area is sll rainfed. Various studies

indicate that the potenal of rainfed areas has not

been fully ulized.

Indian agriculture has started witnessing

second generation problems like diminishing

return on inputs with declining use efficiency,

soil fatigue with decreased content of organic

carbon and increasing deficiencies of secondary

and micronutrients. So far, our major focus was

to enhance crop productivity that happened on

the cost of soil health. Exploitive agriculture offers

great possibilities if carried out in a scientific way

but poses great dangers if carried out with only an

immediate profit motive. Intensive cultivation ofland without conservation of soil fertility and soil

structure would lead, ultimately, to the springing

up of deserts. Management of land, water and

nutrients, therefore, assumes great importance

for sustaining a strong food production capacity

and environment.

[The author is Ex. Director, Internaonal

Plant Nutrion Instute-India Program and Ex.

Professor and Head, Department of Soil Science

and Agricultural Chemistry, Chandra Shekhar Azad

University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur,

5/1074, Viram Khand, Gom Nagar, Lucknow

226010]

Indian agriculture has started witnessingsecond generation problems like diminishing

return on inputs and soil fatigue


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WORLD’S LARGEST EXPERIMENT TO FEED MILLIONS

Dr. Archana Sinha

India is acclaimed internaonally for its fast

growing economy among the developingcountries. At the same me it is struggling

with problems of poverty, hunger, unemployment

and food insecurity, though the poverty level has

declined remarkably in terms of percentage from

over 60 percent during 1951 to about 26 per cent in

2011. However, there is no signicant improvement

in malnutrion level especially among deprived

and marginalized groups. There are several factors

that challenge India’s food security. Firstly, due to

urbanisaon the area under culvaon is reducing

and being used for non-agricultural purposes.

Today humanity is facing a disheartening challenge.The natural resources, both on land and water, are

increasingly in demand to accommodate with the

human needs and potenal.

In order to feed the burgeoning populaon

of India and to aain food security, the eorts for

increasing food producvity and its sustainability

through advanced agro and biotechnological

ways are to be undertaken. However, problems of

climate change, biodiversity, desercaon, water

depleon, etc are being apparent, which in turn arebecoming unfriendly to nature and human health.

There is a crical need for developing systems to

alleviate the environmental disorders in order to

boost crop producvity. Soil health is dened as the

connued capacity of soil to funcon as a vital living

system, by idenfying that it contains biological

elements that are key to the ecosystem funcon

within land use limits. Aer the liberalisaon in

1991 there is a boom in land market in favour of

industries, housing sectors and more recently the

educaonal sector. Good agricultural la

Documents

Kurukshetra November 2013