The three-day event, Annual Forum of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA), showcased innovative ways in which farmers around the world are adapting their practices to become more and more climate smart.
The forum held in Rome witnessed participation from a number of stakeholders—governments, farmer organisations, private sector institutes, civil society and the academia, who discussed challenges facing the agriculture sector today and shared solutions on how to overcome them.
Maria Helena Semedo, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) deputy director general and coordinator for natural resources, said during the launch of GACSA, “Agriculture will play a crucial role in addressing the planet’s future challenge and is key to providing important adaptation, mitigation synergies to climate change as well as socio-economic and environmental co-benefits.”
Evil of climate change
Climate change—the increased frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and storms— is the most challenging issue of our age.
A book detailing how climate change affects food systems says that severity of floods and storms over the past 30 years has put the agriculture sectors of many developing countries at the risk of growing food insecurity.
Around 570 millions farms across the world are facing the threat of climate change at present.
David Nabarro, the special adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change, said world leaders want a change in “modes of production and consumption”… so that the “needs of future generations are fulfilled”.
Stepping up and facing the many challenges in agriculture in not easy. However, the solution may lie in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) that broadly works on three parameters.
These are sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and farmers’ incomes, adapting to Climate Change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), wherever possible.
Ugandan farmer Rose Akaki said, “When you begin to suffer you are seeing things going from bad to worse. You are bound to adapt.”
Adaptation is the key when it comes to CSA. We need to transit to a more sustainable food system and mitigate climate change while at the same time adapt to climate change. Communities that are highly food-insecure or particularly vulnerable to climate change will necessarily prioritise adaptation, but many of the changes they might make to enhance resilience will also increase productivity and efficiency of inputs (fertilizer and water use), and even have co-benefits for mitigation.
Practices such as inter-cropping, multiple cropping and crop rotation are some of the practices farmers are using to fight climate change.
Reducing emissions
According to a report by FAO, to achieve food security and agricultural development goals by 2030, adapting to climate change and lowering emissions will be necessary.
Around 41 per cent of GHG come from agriculture, the CGIAR says.
There are a number of practices that can reduce emissions from agriculture. One is alternate wetting and drying of paddy.By reducing the frequency of irrigation (letting the fields drain periodically), methane emissions from flooded rice production can be cut in half.
The practice was originally developed as a way to save water; so it has potential to be adaptive to climate change as well.
Another method that can work is increasing the productivity of milk and meat production. The livestock sector contributes to about 14.5 per cent of human-induced GHG, much of which is methane produced by ruminant digestion.
Increasing animal and herd productivity means that fewer animals are required to produce the same amount of milk or meat, which also reduces the emissions generated in producing that food.
According to food policy specialist Devinder Sharma when we look at climate change, the issue of GHG is important. “Globally rice is targeted for (the) wrong reasons. More emissions come from livestock production,” he said.
Sharma blamed the intensive farming system for being the culprit as it involves mechanisation and use of fertilisers. The expert advocated a change in economic policies to stop plundering of natural resources, prevent water contamination and land degradation.
Which is better?
When it comes to a comparison between climate-smart agriculture and organic farming, the former is defined by its desired outcomes—agricultural systems that are resilient, productive, and have low emissions.
Organic agriculture is defined by the method of production (no use of synthetic pesticides or fertilisers). However, many of the practices used in organic agriculture are climate smart.
Organic agriculture enhances natural nutrient cycling and builds soil organic matter, which can also support resilience to climate change and sequester carbon in soils.
The forum concluded that climate-smart agriculture can be more effective and successful. A question was asked on what linkages were being established with people working in the sustainable diets sector to which the answer was that sustainable diets and nutrition were important issues and these should be linked to agriculture.
Emphasis was also laid on introducing nutrition indicators, by going beyond calories and promoting “from field to fork approach”.
Case study – The right solution for Africa
One of the main features of climate-smart agriculture is that it considers adaptation and mitigation together in the context of building agricultural systems for food security Credit: Africa Renewal/FlickrThe most vulnerable are subsistence farmers who are prone to climate shocks. Extreme weather events are recurring and persistent. They are not isolated events. There is a need to introduce climate-smart agriculture and water conservation system to make local communities resistant to droughts and floods.
Smart solution
Climate-smart agriculture can be a solution for Africa as the continent will witness frequent drought and alteration in precipitation patterns in years to come.
Africa’s population is predicted to double from its current 0.9 billion by 2050. According to the FAO, more than a quarter of sub-Saharan-Africa people are undernourished. Crop production will need to increase by 260 per cent by 2050 to feed the continent’s growing population.
Better land management practice is one of the ways to fight climate change and increase resilience of farming systems in the continent.
Improved land management strategies used across sub-Saharan Africa are helping protect the environment, boost productivity, strengthen livelihood and enhance food security.
Desertification in Africa
In Africa, threats of desertification and land degradation are ever present, especially in Sahel and the southern edge of the Sahara.
According to the CGIAR report in Niger, farmers have participated in natural regeneration for the past 30 years to restore lands. Local farmers have helped made green 5 million hectares by protecting and managing the natural regeneration of trees and bushes.
In Ethiopia, a project revived 2,700 hectares of degraded forests with a diversity of indigenous species. Rather than replanting trees with costly nursery stock, the farmers managed natural regeneration and more than 90 per cent of the project area has been reforested from stumps of trees previously felled.
A document, published by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and its TerraAfrica partners, including FAO, takes stock of lessons learnt during the five-year TerrAfrica Strategic Investment Program for sustainable land management.
TerrAfrica is an Africa-driven partnership programme to boost sustainable land and water management techniques across sub-Saharan Africa.
One of the main features of climate-smart agriculture is that it considers adaptation and mitigation together in the context of building agricultural systems for food security.
Boosting food security
Climate-smart agriculture explicitly looks for where there are synergies and trade-offs among food security, adaptation and mitigation. The significance of it in the African context stems from the fact that the continent is predominantly rural with many small-holder farmers, Branca added.
Climate-smart agriculture can help African farmers adapt to and mitigate climate change. Several agricultural practices contribute to both these goals simultaneously.
When farmers plant trees to prevent land degradation, they also contribute to climate change mitigation by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
There are projects that have a primary objective of reducing emissions by preventing deforestation and forest degradation. However, these can provide benefits to local communities as well.
As Africa is drought prone, farmers need crop varieties and agricultural practices that continue to produce under extreme weather conditions.
Efforts are on to breed new varieties of crops that are more resilient to erratic weather, especially to drought. Many farmers across Africa are using improved drought-tolerant and insect-resistant crop varieties that help them to improve productivity.
Interview – ‘Climate-smart agriculture not an option, it is a necessity’
When it comes to a comparison between climate-smart agriculture and organic farming, the former is defined by its desired outcomes—agricultural systems that are resilient, productive, and have low emissionsSonali Bisht, founder and advisor to the Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research and Education, an institute dedicated to sustainable development in the Himalayas, talks about how climate-smart agriculture can conserve soil health and make judicious use of water resources.
What are the best ways to reduce greenhouse gases emissions associated with agriculture?
The best ways to reduce them is to produce and consume (food) locally as much as possible (and) cut down on distances involved in travelling.
Ecological and organic agriculture use on-farm and natural inputs and do not use chemicals produced in factories. Reusing of agricultural wastes rather than incineration also reduces greenhouse gases. We also have technology to use livestock emissions in productive ways.
How different is the concept of climate-smart agriculture when compared to organic farming? Do you think organic farming shows us the path towards a more sustainable future?
Agro ecology, conservation of agricultural diversity, organic farming using on-farm inputs, appropriate crop management to manage and sustain soil health and (ensuring the) health, safety and nutrition of food are the paths to a sustainable future.
Do you think a global transition to a more resilient and sustainable agriculture that draws more on natural biological and ecosystem processes will help us achieve zero hunger by 2030?
I certainly think so, provided (that) agriculture research institutions focus on research in this direction and national governments as well as international institutions commit themselves to it and create an enabling environment for farmers as well as other stakeholders (involved in) agriculture.
How does the concept of climate-smart agriculture deal with the following problems: degradation of farmlands, increasing competition for land and water, stagnation in growth of cereal yields and impacts of higher temperatures, droughts and flooding?
Climate-smart agriculture would ideally invest in and promote innovative, adaptive farming communities working towards restoring and conserving soil health.
(It will also) use land and water optimally, do seed selection (judicially) and adapt to uncertain weather conditions armed with the knowledge of options, choices and resources to use them.
Courtsey: FAO
In the present context f climate change, should we focus on producing more with less or should adaptation be the keyword?
They are not mutually exclusive and agriculture is very site specific, so there cannot be universal solutions.
Do you think climate-smart agriculture can prevent Africa’s food shortage and deal with Asia’s growing population pressure?
Climate-smart agriculture is not an option. It is a necessity for now. The first pillar of climate-smart agriculture is productivity. Farmers need productivity, along with adaptation and mitigation efforts.
India has witnessed one of its worst droughts this year. How will climate-smart agriculture help the country in managing its water resources better?
Climate-smart agriculture should create readiness to deal with extreme weather conditions and weather uncertainties, which are becoming the new normal. Management of water resources cannot be left to governments. Every citizen and every farmer has a responsibility.
Every climate-smart farmer would incorporate practices like farm ponds, bundings, trenching, mulching and other practices for conservation of soil moisture, use appropriate seeds and on-farm inputs (to avoid debt situations) and to have better access and control over required water resources.
In what ways can climate-smart agriculture be used in mountain regions to ensure crop production? The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reported that approximately 78 per cent of the world’s mountain area is not suitable, or is marginally suitable, for growing crops.
Mountain communities have lived in and farmed small parcels of land, terracing them and using them for their food and nutrition security.
They have grown crops, raised livestock, fished and utilised forests sustainably. Research and resource support building on their own traditional knowledge and experience as well as natural advantages would enable them to do this even better for themselves and the larger community. Moreover, mountain regions have been repositories of agro biodiversity as well as knowledge of risk resilience, both of which are interlinked.
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- Items provided through FPS
- The scale of rations
- The price of items distributed through FPS across states.
Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.
Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964
Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.
One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.
The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.
India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.
The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.
The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.
Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.
This transformation, however, was not smooth.
In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.
To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.
As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.
The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.
Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.
At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.
As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.
The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.
Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.
Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.
It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.
The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.
A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.
Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.
Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.
Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.
In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.
Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.
These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.
More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.
The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:
It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.
The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.
For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.
Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.
Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.
There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.
Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.
Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.
The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.
In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.