Food Security

Food Security:Modalities of Management

If you don’t diversify, incomes don’t rise. For that you need infrastructure and technology. Seeds are important. You need MNREGA and food security because a lesson of world history is that rise in wages triggers technical change in agriculture. Its not the other way around.

The Food Security Bill may be passed by the time this sees print and it seems better to get back to the village and see how we can have sustained agricultural and rural development growth as the basis of food security. Many years ago I had modelled in the Plans that redistribution always needs to be intertwined with growth. I know that in high growth areas poverty still remains and co-relations of growth with reduced poverty don’t help the women and men and their children are left out. But any food security scheme will only work best in the larger context of widespread and diversified agricultural and rural growth. So back to the village with some stories to anticipate what will really happen and what to do about it.

The typical image of agriculture in the eastern region is hard working poor farmers producing paddy in the monsoon, getting hit by floods and then again gambling in the winter rains, which when they fail lead to drought. Yields were traditionally high in this fertile soil, but did not rise. All that is changing, as we see the Second Green revolution in the Eastern Region. We need more and better versions of that for growth is in spasmodic spurts, rather than a continuous oiled machine and also not everywhere. When I last went there, the district was Midnapur; not as fertile as Hooghly or the 24 Parganas. As you drive out of Howrah, it is all factories, but surprise-surprise, there are now dairies and nurseries. After a few hours of driving we stopped by for a meal and the fish curry, rice and channa dal and topping off with a sandesh and mishti dohi, brought back my childhood in Calcutta. The waiter was happy that an obvious Pathan like character could eat fish and bhat in the Bengali style without first taking out the bones even when the fish was the delectable but not so easy to eat rohu. The Midnapur I landed up in was red laterite soil and the slope of the land didn’t retain water. It drained back into the rivers; an agricultural extension man’s nightmare.  

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Technology and Innovation

Technology and Innovation

 

The larger share of public investments into R&D could also be leveraged by focusing of R&D for public and social good priorities of India

 

The ability to innovate and deploy globally competitive technologies has been recognized as the next key driver of global economic change in the emerging knowledge economy. While science is scholarship driven, technology and innovations are market and competition driven, respectively. Currently, Indian Research and Development landscape is largely influenced by the character of public funded research and selection of R&D priorities is mostly supply driven. The private sector investments into R&D have been marginal. Therefore, demand driven component of R&D goals has been limited. Policy, strategy and tools are required to stimulate larger investments into demand driven R&D goals. Energy sector invests far too low into R&D, although industrial turn over in the sector is extremely high. Promotion of Public-Private Partnerships into R&D and clean energy is a critical component of India’s competitiveness in global trade and industrial growth. New strategies and tools are required to stimulate engagement of private sector into R&D and enhance the share of private sector investment from the current 26% of India’s R&D spend to at least 50% during the 12th plan period.  

The larger share of public investments into R&D could also be leveraged by focusing of R&D for public and social good priorities of the country. There is an un-tapped opportunity for India to emerge as a global leader in affordable innovations under PPP by focusing on R&D for public and social goods in the areas of agriculture and food security, water, energy, affordable health care, education, environment, renovation of urban infrastructure, S&T inputs to rural development etc. Residual idealism among the youth and vast talent base offer an opportunity for the R&D sector in the country to gain leadership in affordable and social innovations.

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Agriculture and Budget

Agriculture and Budget

The agriculture sector which employs more than 55% of  India's work force stands at a cross roads. Measures taken by the government during next few years would decide  the shape the agriculture sector would take 

 

Huge food grains stocks and rising exports of India’s agricultural goods, the union budget presentation for 2013-14 would not have come at a better time for the sector which employs more than half of country’s working class population. 

As finance minister P Chidambaram rose to present the union budget for the year 2013- 14, there was lot of expectation from the arming community. Nothing explains the agriculture sector better than the Economic Survey 2012-13 presented before the parliament just a day before the union budget was announced. The survey observed “Indian agriculture is broadly a story of success. It has done remarkably well in terms of output growth, despite weather and price shocks in the past few years,”.  

The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) agricultural and allied sector witnessed an average annual growth of 3.6 percent in the gross domestic product (GDP) against a target of 4.0 percent. While it may appear that the performance of the agriculture and allied sector has fallen short of the target, production has improved remarkably, growing twice as fast as population. “India’s agricultural exports are booming at a time when many other leading producers are experiencing difficulties,” the survey which is an annual report card of government’s performance noted.  
 

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Is India a Monsoon Economy ?

Is India a Monsoon Economy ?

 

An agricultural drought has very specific effects on crops and regions, and the rainfall pattern on more important welfare effects like drinking water and employment

 

Is India a ‘monsoon economy’? Not true any longer. Until the mid-1970s, in half the year’s growth was negative and in the other half the economy grew between 3 percent and 6 percent, giving us the average Hindu growth rate. But since then, we had only two years with a growth of less than 3 percent. It has been argued by Arvind Panagriya that volatility is higher now. Even that is not the complete picture. If you compare the Sixties of the last century with the post mid seventies period volatility is less now.

A meteorological and an agricultural drought are, to an extent, two different issues. An agricultural drought has very specific effects on crops and regions, and the rainfall pattern on more important welfare effects like drinking water and employment. Human welfare is very important and tracking the events and ameliorating policies in a time-bound manner are essential. 

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Role of NGOs in India

Role of NGOs in India

NGOs can and should play the “game changer” to pro-poor development through leadership on participatory research, community empowerment and search for development alternatives

 

In a democratic society, it is the state that has the ultimate responsibility for ushering development to its citizens. In India, through the progressive interpretation of the Constitution and its laws and policies, the scope of development has been significantly broadened to include not just economic progress for citizens, but also promotion of social justice, gender equity, inclusion, citizen’s awareness, empowerment and improved quality of life. To achieve this holistic vision of development, the state requires the constructive and collaborative engagement of the civil society in its various developmental activities and programs. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as the operational arm of the civil society therefore have an important role in the development processes.

Defining Non-Government Organisations

In its most general usage, civil society refers to all voluntarily constituted social relations, institutions, and organisations that are not reducible to the administrative grasp of the state. NGOs are organisations within the civil society that work on the “not-for-profit” approach in the space which exists between the family (household), market and state. It is made up of several types of formal voluntary organisations, where people based on community, neighbourhood, workplace and other connections form their association to participate in actions for their own collective interests or for larger social good. Those NGOs which are working at the global arena, across several countries are termed as international NGOs.

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Financing Agriculture : Some Issues (India)

Financing Agriculture : Some Issues (India)
 

Small and marginal farmers should be helped to liberate themselves from the stranglehold of moneylender and should be given priority for accessing low cost credit.

Post 1990 India has emerged as one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Its GDP growth rate of about 9% in the last few years is historically unparalleled except by our neighbour China. With rapid economic and social growth, however, new challenges emerge as also new growth strategies. For sustainable economic development, the crucial agricultural sector has to grow at a consistent 4% growth rate to GDP. Given the fact that 60% of our farming is monsoon dependent, ensuring consistent growth in food production is a major challenge, especially in wake of global warming and consequent climatic changes.

Credit has a very important role to play in supporting agricultural production and investment activities. The total credit flow to agriculture during the 10th Five Year Plan was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.38%, as against the CAGR of 18.63% achieved during the 9th Five Year Plan. However, although the total agricultural credit has increased during the last six years, there are serious quantitative as well as qualitative concerns. The poor outreach of the formal institutional credit structure is a serious issue that needs to be corrected expeditiously. The findings of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 59th Round (2003), reveal that only 27% of the total number of cultivator households received credit from formal sources while 22% received credit from informal sources. The remaining households, comprising mainly small and marginal farmers, had no credit outstanding. Comprehensive measures aimed at financial inclusion in terms of innovative products and services to increase access to financial services and institutional credit, are required. Other issues such as ensuring credit flow to tenant farmers, oral lessees and women cultivators, complex documentation processes, high transaction costs, lack of availability of quality inputs across all regions, inadequate and ineffective risk mitigation arrangements, poor extension services, weak marketing links and sectoral and regional issues in credit are also required to be addressed expeditiously. The lack of rural credit bureaus also delays the process of sanction of agricultural loans as there is need to reduce loan risk and documentation procedures.

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