The thing I like about agriculture economics is that most of it is common sense and hence in critical short supply. Listen to the best brains around – Sainath, Devender Sharma, Suman Sahai, MS Swaminathan, even, occasionally, Swaminathan Aiyer – and you would wonder in bewilderment at the absence of common sense and simplicity in the entire Government system around agriculture.
Take the issue – now fading in public memory since it hit the headlines earlier this year – of rotting food. When a conscientious activist filed an RTI application in January 2010 asking for information on just how much food was rotting or damaged in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India, the answer stunned the nation: 10,688 lakh tonnes. Lets put this down numerically: 10,688,00,000,000 kgs.
When I contrast the insistence in most middle class families that the food on the table – mere grams of rice, or an extra roti - not be left over or thrown away, with this wanton, egregious, almost criminal waste, our value system seems terribly pointless. I spent some time reading articles on just why such large quantities of food lay rotting away. Let me give you some of the reasons :
1. Godowns available, but
a. leased out to the food companies such as Pepsi and ITC, who pay higher rents than FCI (I am referring to godowns owned or operated by State Governments, not by private players, so their touching refrain on a godown’s profitability is most unbelievable)
b. used to stock liquor, because of its ‘value-add’.
c. no labour to move material into it. Hence, food kept out in the open, under plastic sheets, while the godown lies semi-occupied. Dampness in the air in the monsoons encourages toxic fungal growth.
d. administrative apathy: no one sees the point in loading bags into a godown and out, when it will not rain (of course, it rains immediately).
2. Food in godown not taken out (in Haryana) before flooding, despite five days notice given on possible need for evacuation.
3. Bags of grain stocked one on top of another in colossal piles, which means that the grain at the bottom is damaged. In this technology age, no State Government has created grain silos, an obvious solution.
4. In instances, lack of availability of space in food godowns.
In other words, a large part of this wastage is hugely avoidable.
So much for supply. Lets talk of the need for grain. The National Sample Survey consumer expenditure data tells that 74.5 per cent of rural persons could not reach the recommended level of 2400 calories of daily intake in 1993 to 1994. By 2004-05, the percentage had reached an unprecedented high of 87 per cent. As importantly, the quality of food they eat is deteriorating as well.
A big part of India’s agricultural and food crisis, including this horrendous wastage, can be attributed to one man: our Honourable Agriculture-cum-Food-cum-Consumer Affairs Minister, of whom it can be safely said that, in the last seven years that he has held these portfolios, he has done virtually nothing to address India’s food security and long term agricultural balance. His decisions (including ones regarding the export of grain when there is a deficit) are bizarre; indeed never has he let reason or wisdom come in the way of a decision (or, indeed, in the absence of a decision). Add to this a rather outsized ego: when asked about the impact of food inflation on the poor, for instance, he said that if the poor could afford to buy soft drinks, then they could surely afford food essentials. His star moments are when he indulges in the politics of cricket with abandon,
Then, why does the Prime Minister put up with this?
The answer: the Hon Minister in question has considerable nuisance value and is an astute trouble maker, fishing with characteristic elan in troubled waters. The late US President Lyndon Johnson once said of a powerful, but troublesome colleague, “It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in.”
It’s a heavy price to pay for India’s rotting food.
Take the issue – now fading in public memory since it hit the headlines earlier this year – of rotting food. When a conscientious activist filed an RTI application in January 2010 asking for information on just how much food was rotting or damaged in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India, the answer stunned the nation: 10,688 lakh tonnes. Lets put this down numerically: 10,688,00,000,000 kgs.
When I contrast the insistence in most middle class families that the food on the table – mere grams of rice, or an extra roti - not be left over or thrown away, with this wanton, egregious, almost criminal waste, our value system seems terribly pointless. I spent some time reading articles on just why such large quantities of food lay rotting away. Let me give you some of the reasons :
1. Godowns available, but
a. leased out to the food companies such as Pepsi and ITC, who pay higher rents than FCI (I am referring to godowns owned or operated by State Governments, not by private players, so their touching refrain on a godown’s profitability is most unbelievable)
b. used to stock liquor, because of its ‘value-add’.
c. no labour to move material into it. Hence, food kept out in the open, under plastic sheets, while the godown lies semi-occupied. Dampness in the air in the monsoons encourages toxic fungal growth.
d. administrative apathy: no one sees the point in loading bags into a godown and out, when it will not rain (of course, it rains immediately).
2. Food in godown not taken out (in Haryana) before flooding, despite five days notice given on possible need for evacuation.
3. Bags of grain stocked one on top of another in colossal piles, which means that the grain at the bottom is damaged. In this technology age, no State Government has created grain silos, an obvious solution.
4. In instances, lack of availability of space in food godowns.
In other words, a large part of this wastage is hugely avoidable.
So much for supply. Lets talk of the need for grain. The National Sample Survey consumer expenditure data tells that 74.5 per cent of rural persons could not reach the recommended level of 2400 calories of daily intake in 1993 to 1994. By 2004-05, the percentage had reached an unprecedented high of 87 per cent. As importantly, the quality of food they eat is deteriorating as well.
A big part of India’s agricultural and food crisis, including this horrendous wastage, can be attributed to one man: our Honourable Agriculture-cum-Food-cum-Consumer Affairs Minister, of whom it can be safely said that, in the last seven years that he has held these portfolios, he has done virtually nothing to address India’s food security and long term agricultural balance. His decisions (including ones regarding the export of grain when there is a deficit) are bizarre; indeed never has he let reason or wisdom come in the way of a decision (or, indeed, in the absence of a decision). Add to this a rather outsized ego: when asked about the impact of food inflation on the poor, for instance, he said that if the poor could afford to buy soft drinks, then they could surely afford food essentials. His star moments are when he indulges in the politics of cricket with abandon,
Then, why does the Prime Minister put up with this?
The answer: the Hon Minister in question has considerable nuisance value and is an astute trouble maker, fishing with characteristic elan in troubled waters. The late US President Lyndon Johnson once said of a powerful, but troublesome colleague, “It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in.”
It’s a heavy price to pay for India’s rotting food.
