STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMME AND FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA

Transcription

1 STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMME AND FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA The term "food security" and "food insecurity" are widely used by scientist and policy makers. These terms have been variously defined and interpreted across the world. Howevei", the underlined fact is that the concept of food security is wider, larger and nnore comprehensive than mere banishing of the hunger. In a crude sense, the term food security refers to the ability of a country to provide amounts of food for its population. Thus, physical and economic access to food at the household level, at all times, to ensure healthy and active life is the crux of food security at macro level. In other words it can be said that the term food security covers adequate production and availability of food at national as well as individual level and it is also associated with peoples' ability to buy such food, which is necessary for them to live a healthy life. During early discoiirse, food security implied an arrangement for providing minimum level of foodgrains for the population during years of normal as well as poor harvests. Later on it was realised that physical availability alone would not ensure food security for all population. Accordingly, it was emphasised that production and availability in supplies should match efforts in poverty eradication and creating effective demand to ensure economic and physical access to food for the poor. Even further later^ three stages for food security were recognised as; food self-sufficiency; food security; and nutritional security. Food self-sufficiency is merely a statistical concept for measuring, quantitative adeauacy of food available in the market within a country either through indigenous production or through imports. Food security on the other hand is defined in terms of the capacity of an

2 2 I Structural Adjustment Programme and Food Securify individual to have physical and economic access to food all times. Nutritional security is the advance stage where people have physical and economic access to balance nutrition and clean drinking water. Agriculture is the mainstay of India, in which about 66 percent people of the country are engaged for their livelihood. Droughts and other natural calamities have been part and parcel of India's rural life since time immemorial of which agriculture has been one of the main victims. Therefore after independence agricultural development has been accorded one of the top most priorities in country's five-year plans. Initially, India had to resort to large-scale food import to fill the gap between domestic demand and supply and also to build a sufficient food stock for unforeseen circumstances. But ensuring food security for a fast growing population was not an easy task as deficits in food security stemmed from the combined effects of factors such as low levels of food production, poverty and diminishing environmental quality. In this thesis the concern to food security in India is analysed on three grounds i.e. (i) availability of food; (ii) access to food; and (iii) absorption of food. In other words growth, equity and sustainability are the three crucial yardsticks through which the case of food security in India is compared during the period of pre and post economic reforms. By growth it is simply meant rise in output percapita as well as in absolute terms while the equity considerations are evaluated in terms of the distribution benefits to the overall sections of the society particularly poor. And sustainability is considered in terms of the use of methods and technology that are environment friendly. Since Independence India made commendable progress in improving the food and nutrition security. Growth in foodgrain production exceeded the population growth rate and thus contributed to substantial increase in percapita availability of foodgrains from 429 grams percapita per day in 1950s to 470 grams percapita per day in 1990s. Rice and wheat output growth primarily buttressed the increased availability of foodgrains. Rice and

3 Abstract I 3 wheat percapita availability jumped from 158 and 65 grams per day to 227 and 164 grams respectively during the same period. Following the new economic policy and establishment of World Trade Organisation in nineties Indian agriculture has witnessed some everlasting changes. These developments have cast a shadow on the basic national concern i.e. food security. Increase in food prices, shrinking area under foodgrains, lowering offtake and increasing cost of food stocks have emerged as major concerns with regard to food security. India at present finds itself in the midst of a paradoxical situation: endemic mass-hunger coexisting with the mounting foodgrain stocks. The foodgrain stocks available with the government stand as high as over three times of the minimum buffer norms for ensuring food security. Still, an estimated 200 million people are underfed and 50 million on the brink of starvation. Trade liberalisation and policies of globalisation were supposed to increase food production through enhancement in efficiency, ameliorate the economic situation of farmers and improve patterns of consumption. But, in fact trade liberalisation has led to a decline in food production, food productivity and deterioration in the conditions of farmers not to mention hampering food security in the country. The latest official estimates suggest that still more than a quarter of our population lives below the poverty line. This implies that despite the availability of foodgrains for meeting the requirements of the entire population, the country is still far behind generating the necessary purchasing power or effective demand from the poor to satisfy their needs. Consequently, a large section of our population is suffering from food insecurity. As a whole the post new economic policy or structural adjustment programme period is seen as a major disappointment in tenns of aggregate growth performance in agriculture caused by continuing slackness in public investment, rural infrastructure and employment generation. Undermining of the Indian agriculture after the economic reform could be gauged from the fact that growth of food output had decelerated to 1.15

4 4 I Structural Ad}ustrr)er\t Programme and Food Security percent compound every year, whereas, during the same period population growth has been recorded an increase at 1.94 percent compound every year. The thrust on exports of agricultural produce has resulted in a significant change in cropping patterns. Indian producers have been diverting more and more cultivable land from foodgrains and pulses to the production of oilseeds, cotton, horticultural crops, prawn culture, animal husbandry etc. Area under foodgrain cultivation in was 14 million hectares less than in The most severe decline has been in coarse grains and pulses, which are the main foodgrains of the poor. Area under coarse cereals fell by 10 million hectares between and For pulses the area fell by 3 million hectares. Even area under rice in was 2 million hectares less than in In major foodgrains only the area under wheat registered some increase. The irony is that even the perfomiance of non-foodgrains is not much better. The index of area under non-foodgrains shows a marginal decline in area. Thus, the overall performance of agriculture during the structural adjustment programme has found to be deteriorated. The fall in production was further accentuated by the collapse of yield growth of all the major crops like wheat, rice, coarse cereals, pulses, cotton, sugarcane and even oil seeds. The index of agriculture production shows that the yield of foodgrains has declined from 2.74 percent in eighties to just 1.17 percent in the post reform period. Similarly the yield of non-foodgrains decelerated from 2.31 percent in eighties to 0.47 percent in nineties. Thus, the yield of all principle crops taken together registered a sharp decline from 2.56 percent in the pre-reform decade to 0.86 percent in the post refonn period. The PDS entitlement meets only a quarter of the total foodgrain requirements of a BPL family, which means it has to depend more on the market for meeting its total requirements. On the other hand raising central issue prices for APL families have forced them too opting for market purchases. Consequently, the market demand for food has risen. But, the massive foodgrain procurement by government has diverted out the market

5 Abstract I 5 supplies to FCI's godowns resulting even further increase in food prices. Thus, effective reach of PDS has shrunken alarmingly during the post reform compared to eighties. Despite bulging stocks and a poor harvest, distribution of foodgrains in 2000 was the lowest since Consequently percapita cereals availability in 2001 fell to its lowest level in over two decades. High increase in the food stod^ mounted the foods subsidy bill whereas decline in the consumer subsidy in the nineties deteriorated the food security situation of the poor. Hypothetical division of people into categories like, below poverty Jine (BPL) and above poverty line (APL) with the issue prices being different for each category, is not the best tool to increase food security. This division has left a whole lot of deserving poor out side the PDS net. Further, the poverty line has proven to be an unsatisfactory and a weak criterion. For example, if one goes by the intake of calories, then around 53 percent of the population is deficient in terms of calorie intake. If one goes by the nutritional status of the children then again more than half the population is nutritionally poor. In fact, the economic bi-partition of people on hypothetical considerations is always prone to faults, which has quite remarkably been proven in government's various schemes launched during the structural adjustment programme. The existing food management system has basically evolved in response to severe food shortages and lack of proper distribution. Thus, the prime objective of the food management system was to increase the domestic foodgrains production, procurement and storage through various means. So that any supply shortages are met on time. As long as the problem of food scarcity and inadequate supply persisted the food policy moved satisfactorily ensuring food security for the population, protecting the interest of the consumers and restraining the rise in foodgrain prices. It encouraged the domestic foodgrains production besides succeeding in safeguarding the interest of the consumers and bringing relative stability in foodgrain prices. But the continuance of the old objectives even after India achieved near self-

6 6 I Structural Adjustment Programme and Food Securify sufficiency in food production and piling a huge food stocks has rendered the present food policy obsolete. Incessant rise in Minimum Support Prices and committed FCI purchases have distorted the cropping pattern in favour of the crops that fetch more MSPs. This has also led to a serious imbalance in inter-crop parities, besides spoiling the ecological balance in the form of water logging, salinity, depletion of vital micronutrients in the soil, and reduced fertility etc. Thus, India's present food policy is more to blame for the mismanagement in the sector. The government is pegging the price of food and raising it from year to year at a rate higher than the inflation rate. And because there is a procurement policy where the government will take up whatever is given to it at the MSP. Throughout the economic reforms, the relative price of food has risen, which is certainly a dangerous trend, particularly for the poor whose incomes are fixed or not rising as fast as the rest of the economy. Simultaneously, ever-rising food subsidy is not being spent on food distribution but on food stocks. Thus, the present food security system reflects the basic flaw in our policy-making for agriculture and rural development.