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dam-l LS: Bartering Away 50 Years of Agricultural Gain
Copyright 2000 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 11-Feb-2* ***
Title: DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Bartering Away 50 Years of Agricultural Gain
By Ranjit Dev Raj
NEW DELHI, Feb 11 (IPS) - India is bartering away, in the name of
free trade, 50 years of meticulous planning, research and
implementation in agriculture which gives this country its
enviable self-sufficiency, warn food security analysts.
Food security through self-sufficiency was in fact central
to Indian agricultural policy after Independence and its
achievements through the ''green revolution'' are widely
acknowledged as remarkable by any standards.
But as the green revolution falters, Indian agriculture, still
the mainstay of the economy, has come under fresh assault by
liberalisation, says leading food and trade policy analyst
Devinder Sharma.
''The problems raised by intensive agriculture have been
aggravated by the effects of liberalisation,'' Sharma argues in a
newly released book sponsored by the UK Food Group, a coalition
of leading non-government organisations (NGOs).
''At a time when hunger is on the increase and cereals and
meat produced on India's most fertile lands are being used not to
feed its people, but to make pet food and whiskey for foreign
markets,'' Sharma points out.
Under liberalisation the government has allowed the trans-
national corporation (TNC), Seagram to manufacture alcohol from
coarse grain on which millions of poor Indians depend for their
meagre protein intake.
According to a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
document, released last October, the per capita availability of
protein for the average Indian has dropped to only half of what
it was in 1951.
Analysis in the UNFPA document titled 'Population, Food
Production and Nutrition in India' showed that the rate of
increase in production of other foodgrains has also slowed down
and could become worse in the future.
''If per capita production has to be maintained, demand needs
to be reduced and supply increased which means that the growth in
population has to decline so that deceleration in the supply of
foodgrains is matched by decelerating growth in demand from a
more slowly growing population,'' the UNFPA document said.
But there are other trends to consider besides population
growth. Farmers in India's 'granary' of northern Punjab state
have been induced to switch from growing wheat and rice to
potatoes and tomatoes for the fast food industry.
In neighbouring Haryana, which rivals Punjab in agriculture,
industrial houses are buying up wheat fields to invest in
floriculture with funds from corporations in the Netherlands
where pesticides and fertilisers now saturate ground water.
Under the plan, Dutch companies which control the global
flower business, provide the planting material, infrastructure
support and the marketing while conveniently translocating an
environmental catastrophe.
Even more audaciously, Royal Canine of France has been allowed
to set up a project worth 28 million dollars to manufacture dog
and cat food out of meat and cereals produced in a country whose
people are grossly malnourished.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) classifies India
as a low-income, food-deficient country with a third of its
population ''food insecure'' and consuming less than basic energy
requirements.
According to UNICEF, nearly 5,000 children die from
malnutrition and related diseases every day in India while 80
percent of pregnant women are anaemic.
The UNFPA document observes that the problem of hunger and
starvation has persisted not so much because of non-availability
of foodgrains but because of their uneven distribution at macro
(regional) and micro (family) levels.
''Increasing affluence in some sections of population has been
and is likely to change dietary patterns. It is likely that the
demand for grain-fed livestock products will rise. It is also
estimated that rich people consume roughly four times as much
grain as poor people,'' the UNFPA document said.
According to Sharma, as a result of liberalisation even more
fundamental changes are happening to Indian agriculture and
cutting at the very roots of its past strengths - research.
Recently, 15 hectares of prime farm land within the sprawling
campus of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in
the heart of Delhi was allotted to the Israeli government
for research.
The U.S beverage giant Pepsi has been allowed to set up a
research centre for fruit and vegetable breeding in Punjab while
Unilever and Monsanto have established biotechnology laboratories
at Bangalore in South India.
An exodus of agricultural scientists has already begun from
the large public sector institutes such as IARI and the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for lucrative jobs at the
laboratories run by the TNCs.
''It is only a matter of time before a giant like Monsanto
takes over as the country's main agricultural research and
development agency and sets a national agenda based on profits
rather the country's needs,'' Sharma said.
Worst of all is the steady withdrawal of subsidies for the
impoverished Indian farmer under pressure from the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) while OECD countries continue give their
farmers heavy subsidies.
It is estimated that annual agriculture support adds up to
33,000 dollars per farm in Japan and 30,000 dollars for farms in
the European Union and the United States.
''At that rate the annual subsidy that a cow receives in the
European Union would work out to more than the annual income of
a farming family in India,'' Sharma said.
The FAO estimates that the top five users of export subsidies
for wheat together controlled 95 percent of trade in the grain.
Given such huge market distortions it would be impossible for
Indian farmers to compete as they are now required to do.
In October the government abolished duty on imported pulses -
another important source of protein in Indian diets - on the plea
that imports would bring down prices but ignored arguments that
there would now be even less incentive to grow more pulses.
According to Usha Tuteja, a researcher at the Institute for
Agriculture Economics at Delhi University what happened was that
the price of pulses in the international market rose in
anticipation of heavy demand from India.
Last December, India began a massive phase-out of
quantitative restrictions it has maintained for decades on the
import of a range of food items including staples such as wheat
and rice.
''Increased agricultural imports will certainly mean the loss
of several million livelihoods and in India where more than 400
million people survive on a daily income of less than a dollar
the socio-economic impact can be catastrophic,'' Sharma said.
(END/IPS/rdr/an/00)
Origin: New Delhi/DEVELOPMENT-INDIA/
----
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