Ridding India of Food Security

Context: 

In July this year, annual food price inflation exceeded 11%, the highest in a decade, resulting in a section of the population facing hardship in consuming food of adequate nutritional value.

Concerning Findings:

• The ‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates the proportion of the population across countries unable to afford a healthy diet. 
• The Figure for India in 2021: An estimated 74% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet. 
• Implied Reduction in Purchasing Power: It would be reasonable to expect that food consumption has been impacted. 
• Rise in the Prevalence of Anemia: As per latest National Family Health Survey (undertaken over 2019-21), over 50% of adult women were estimated to be anemic. 

About the Green Revolution:

• Achievement: India had engineered a Green Revolution in the 1960s.
  • The first Green Revolution had a specific agenda of making India self-sufficient in food. In this it succeeded eminently, and in a remarkably short time. 
• Concerns: The rampant use of chemical fertilizer, fuelled by subsidy, degraded the soil. 
  • There was also the reliance on procurement prices rather than productivity increase to ensure farm incomes, which fuelled inflation. 
  • The policy was almost exclusively focused on cereals rather than pulses, the main source of protein for most Indians. 
• Time to Focus on: A second agricultural revolution is needed now to contain the rising price of food and hence, yield increasing interventions on the farm are needed. 

The Path Ahead:

• Irrigation Expenditure: Review and optimize public spending on irrigation for efficiency.
• Research Institute Revival: India’s network of public agricultural research institutes needs to be energized to resume the sterling role they had played in the 1960s. 
  • Revival of the role of the gram sevak in the village, playing a crucial role in the dissemination of best practices.
• Increase of Protein Production: Various initiatives should be dovetailed into a programme for the manifold increase of protein production.
• Develop a spirit of Cooperative Federalism: States are asked to play their part to enhance agricultural productivity rather than relying on food allocations to their Public Distribution System from the central pool.
• Focus on Permanent Access: In order to ensure that all Indians have permanent access to a healthy diet, no approach consistent with ecological security must be off the table.
• Intervention on the Supply Side: It is necessary to intervene on the supply side to ensure that food is produced at a steady price by raising the yield on land.
• Lowering of Food Prices: Need to focus on the specific goal of lowering the cost of producing food. 
• Multidimensional Approach: Need to extend irrigation to 100% of the net sown area, an end to restrictions on leasing of land, a quickening of agricultural research and the re-institution of extension.

News Source: The Hindu