K. P. Prabhakaran Nair

A grainy picture on the food front.

THE Union Budget has been hailed in different quarters, especially inasmuch as the battered farm sector is concerned. A fortnight ago, when the Prime Minister visited Andhra Pradesh, where there has been a spate of farmer suicides, he went to the extent of saying that a "second Green Revolution" will be launched, and poverty and hunger will be washed clean from the face of India.

But it would be seen that this Budget, as far as agriculture is concerned, is to a large extent a rehash of what Mr Jaswant Singh had done, both in Budget 2003-04 and the interim one that followed before the NDA decided to go to the people for a fresh mandate to rule.

There are very similar items, such as the horticulture mission, which was the idea of Mr Jaswant Singh. Of course, there is no mention of "precision farming", whatever it might mean when implemented in the Indian context.

The ICAR gets an additional Rs 250 crore for the usual "research and development", without specifying how this sum would be spent. Mr Chidambaram has spelt out certain specific areas which need focus such as water, agribusiness enterprises, crop insurance, etc.

In fact, if one considers the total sum allocated for the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, it remains the same, at the Rs 3,014 crore in the Interim Budget by the NDA in February.

There is no change either in the allocation for animal husbandry, dairying, education and research over the Interim Budget.

This Budget, when juxtaposed against the real situation on the farm, especially the food front, is worrying. The data released by the Economic Survey reveal some very disturbing trends. On the food front, the population explosion has overtaken the rate of food production.

We are now 102.8 crore, at an annual growth rate of 1.94 per cent, that is close to 3 crore more when the last count was made in May 2000 — an increase of 3 per cent in less than four years.

According to the Registrar General, Population, India's population is all set to exceed that of China by 2035, when it will be 146 crore. It is against this background that one must examine where this Budget is taking the nation on the food front. A look at the data in the Economic Survey:

Between 1999 and 2003, the population grew from 996.4 million to 1,068.2 million — an increase of 7 per cent, while per capita availability, primarily cereals and pulses, came down by 6 per cent for cereals and 23 per cent for pulses.

With the exception of the drought year of 2001, the last time such abysmally low levels of availability of food were seen was just before the Second World War and, once again, during the two years of food crisis in the mid-1960s. As the population grew by 18 million in 2003, foodgrains production dropped by 32 million tonnes.

This is a terrible indictment on the `first' Green Revolution and the prospects for change for a `second' one are, indeed, very bleak. Even the availability of cooking oils was significantly lower as it fell from almost 9 kg per capita to 7.2 kg per capita in 2003. As demand for refined oils is rising due to higher incomes and better distribution chains, a drop in supplies meant an increase in prices.

In 2003-04, edible oil prices rose 6.6 per cent, on top of the already very high increase of 27 per cent in 2002-03. According to the Survey, the net availability of cereals dropped to 160 million tonnes in 2003, down from 175 million tonnes in 2002 — a decrease of 9 per cent. The net availability of pulses fell from 13.4 million tonnes to just 11 million tonnes in 2003 — down 18 per cent.

Result: A very serious drop in the per capita availability of cereals by as much as 10 per cent in 2003 compared to 2002, and the availability of pulses from 35 gm to 28 gm in the same period — a drop of 20 per cent.

It is a sad commentary on the agricultural fraternity that last year the nation imported $2.5 billion worth of edible oil! And to make the noise that New Delhi did, about exporting $4 billion worth of foodgrains — think of it, the grains were exported at about Rs 5 a kg, below the rate at which it is made available to the poor below the poverty line — it was sheer theatrics.

India is inching towards a hunger trap. And the Budget has not addressed this very crucial fact. Of the Rs 250-crore earmarked for ICAR, it is not spelt out where the money would go. India's plant breeders are in a blind man's alley inasmuch as breaking the yield barrier in principal staples such as rice and wheat are concerned. And the situation with pulses and edible oils is no better.

India's agricultural policy should continue to be "grain-centred", supplemented by pulses and oilseeds. Horticulture can come thereafter.

By pumping resources into horticulture, the Finance Minister is merely looking at the prospects for exports, also through value-addition, and not domestic food needs. After all, carbohydrates, proteins and fats are central to human survival and these come primarily from cereals, pulses and oilseeds.

Ignoring these would mean putting India's food security in peril. Sadly, the Finance Minister seems to have not applied his mind seriously to this question, or more likely, has not been advised as to where India's priorities must lie as far as its food security is concerned.

(The author is a former National Science Foundation Professor, Royal Society, Belgium. He can be reached at Nair_KPP@yahoo.com)

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