Dilution of grain quality standards -Its impact on food scenario in India

The Minimum Support Price ( MSP) scheme offered by the Government for many commodities is to counteract the depressing market prices often manipulated by middlemen working in rural regions fleecing the farmers, especially when there is a production glut. Quality standards are in vogue based on which procurement operations are done. Many pundits feel that if India has achieved self sufficiency in food grains with enough quantities in the granaries for ensuring long term food security, these MSP programs are to be applauded. It is another matter that Food Corporation of India has been finding it difficult to manage the logistics of storage with a part of the procured grains becoming unfit for human consumption. Here again there is a raging debate whether silo storage or gunny bag storage is more suited to Indian conditions with both sides having their own points for justification. What stands out in this debate is that government, who ever has been ruling the country, could not do much to save grains going rotten inviting condemnation even from the Supreme Court of the country!

One often wonders what would have happened if there was no MSP program in India? Will the production base shrink? Will there be unbearable price escalation in the grain market? What would be its impact on the Public Distribution System (PDS)? Would there be more farmers' suicides? Will there be large scale starvation? Will the farmers abandon agriculture and increase the already high rate of urban migration?  Very difficult questions to answer! During the current year government diluted the food grain quality marks to accommodate offerings from farmers in some states where there were unexpected weather contingencies in the form of nonseasonal rains which are supposed to have damaged the harvest. It is a moot point whether such standards are to to be meddled with for the sake of convenience from time to time. Where is the sanctity for National Food Standards? Can government relax the provisions of food safety regulations allowing private traders to indulge in adulteration because of this situation? Again difficult to get a clear answer. 

Another dichotomy in the system is that government has quality standards for buying from the farmers but is least concerned with what happens to these grains after procurement and storage for years together before distribution at the PDS out lets? It is common knowledge that most consumers who depend on PDS supply for their survival find it hard to use these sub-quality grains unfit even for feeding animals!

Tragically food safety inspectors seem to have been "instructed" not to "touch" the so called ration shops for quality checking in the national interest! Accountability is a non-existent word in the dictionary of those handling food grains in this country, with all of them going scotfree for negligence, callousness and dishonesty in depriving the citizen of wholesome foods! The political gimmick now being enacted in the name of Food Security Act probably will worsen the problem further because of increased burden in procuring adequate grains for supply to the "entitled" citizens. Giving cash in lieu of entitled grains through jan dhan banks is another gimmickry because government is going to give to the deprived consumer cash, equivalent to the MSP price of these grains. In to day's market where rice and wheat are sold at prices varying from Rs 35 to 60 per kg, how much grain can be bought? Will it extinguish the fire in the tummies of poor and famished due to hunger?    

How is the government going to use the food grains procured during the current year? Is it legal to supply them under the Food Safety Act? Food Corporation of India (FCI) generally follows a practice of 'First In First Out' (FIFO) using the freshly procured to replace old stocks which are channeled into PDS. However the wheat currently being procured is not in a condition to be stored for long. According to experts most of the grain procured suffer from lustre loss, which is supposed to make it vulnerable to pest attacks, and thus long term storage of the crop is highly risky. FCI is supposed to supply food grain mostly consisting of rice and wheat to PDS from the previous stocks, while the new crop being procured is stored for about 2-3 years before routing through the distribution channel. .FCI supplies around 22 million tonne of wheat annually to the PDS. but this time the procurement is targeted to be 30 million tons for operationalizing the food security act. This has made the Government to relax the quality standards and pressure from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh,has further compounded the problem resulting in compromising with grain quality. Of course some minor value cut equivalent of around Rs 3.63 per quintal from Rs 1450 per quintal minimum support price was imposed on the grains not adhering to the food ministry's revised quality norms. The purpose of relaxing norms was to ensure that farmers in key wheat growing states could get almost the entire MSP for the wheat sold to FCI and state-owned agencies, irrespective of quality.

A relevant question that begs for an answer is the dynamics of management FCI has in mind to segregate the procured wheat this year so that they do not get mixed up with the existing stocks in warehouses from where PDS outlets get their supplies. How far the new policy of sending the freshly procured directly to the PDS outlets will affect the quality of the existing stocks some of them nearing their expiration period is an important question. Of course one has to sympathize with the current government which inherited such a chaotic system with no long term vision in mind and "managing" during the last few decades almost on a fire fighting mode! Probably it may be time to rethink these issues more deeply and evolve a long term policy for managing the food grain market in the country.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Changing face of Indian agriculture-Mechanization vs manual operations

How often we hear the bland statement that rural India is responsible for feeding a population estimated at 1.20 billion in India and 70% of India's population is engaged in agricultural and other rural based activities, being the residents of more than 5 lakh villages across the country. However what is not clear is whether so many people are really needed to produce the quantum of foods being harvested year in and year out? There was this situation during the early stage of growth of this country when the technological base of agriculture, especially use of mechanical implements was indeed very weak, with most operations in the field being carried by the labor available locally. Over the years India's technological base has expanded and there is indigenous manufacture of many mechanical implements liker tractors which can fill the places of many manual workers with much more efficiency and it is no wonder that many well to do farmers are shifting to mechanized cultivation at least partially in many parts of the country, especially in Punjab and Haryana. Probably part of the productivity achieved during the last few years can be attributed to this factor. If this is so one wonders what ever has happened to the displaced labor caused by such mechanization trend? 

There is a strong feeling that the frenetic pace at which migration of rural population into urban areas must have some thing to do with declining opportunities for gainful employment in the farmlands in the country because of perceptible transition from predominantly labor oriented operations to a machine based production regime seen all over the country, though it is more in some states and less in some others. One of the amazing phenomena associated with this transition is that it flies contrary to the theory that small land holdings that characterize the land holding pattern in the country does not lend itself to mechanized farming unlike that existing in western countries where farm sizes can be 1000 acres and above in most cases. Look at the land holding pattern in India which brings out the stark reality about the predominance of marginal farmers in the agricultural landscape of the country. Almost 63% of the landholders have, on an average holding size of less than an acre of land to till while about 19% are relatively better placed by farming on a piece of land about the size of 3 acres per family. On the other end of the spectrum, 1% of the farming population own on an average 35 acres of land.per person. Others fall in between with average size holding in the range of 5 acres to 35 acres. The million dollar question that begs for an answer is how far such a landscape is amenable to mechanized farming? 

No doubt Indian agriculture is going through a transformation with governments, both at the state and central levels pumping in enormous money for sustaining the livelihood of the farmers, especially the so called marginal farmers. Minimum Support Prices offered to more than two dozen commodities and many farmer welfare programs are able to provide sustenance to millions of farmers. But at the same time more farmer suicides are taking place with a monotonous regularity defying any logical explanation. Billions of rupees worth of loans are being written off every year with politicians competing with each other in announcing such write offs! If India can boast of food grain stocks that is capable of ensuring food security we have to thank our hard working farmers who toil under adverse conditions like frequent droughts and floods. But can this situation continue indefinitely and will the farmers continue to stick to their land if agricultural activity becomes a perennially losing avocation? Land fragmentation in India is inevitable under a government regime where inherited land holdings by successive generations get shrunken in size and obviously becoming more and more non-viable. These inherited land pieces are not easily salable due to severe restrictive policies of the state governments with financially capable entrepreneurs barred from buying agricultural land. A classical Catch 22 situation!   

A recent report by one of the agencies under Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) provides interesting information regarding the changing agricultural scenario in the country. According to this report, Indian farmers, in spite of enormous hurdles and limitations are increasingly using more and more power based mechanical devices replacing the human element to manage their lands. India is known for its bullock driven economy till a couple of decades ago with agriculture contributing substantially to the national GDP and man and the beast combination successfully brought about the green revolution in the last millennium achieving the much desired food self sufficiency. Even to day many agricultural and social experts are not willing to write off the poor oxen which was an integral part of the rural settings across the country. A 1000 animal village with 60% milking cows and the rest dry cows and oxen is being propagated by the government of India for the integrated development of a village which can sell its milk for generating income while the byproducts from the animals like cow dung can produce cooking gas as well as manure for the farms belonging to the villagers. How far such novel schemes will succeed in an era when people are exposed to the convenience inherent in mechanical implements based agriculture remains to be seen.    

If ICAR findings are to be believed, Indian agriculture is going through a far reaching change mode beginning two decades ago. The share of human power available for carrying out the various operations in farming seems to have come down to less than 5% while draught animals' share also hovers around another 5%. More than 90% of the power is estimated to be drawn from mechanical sources like tractors and power tillers ( 47%); electric motors (27%) and diesel engines (16%). Compare this with the situation obtaining 40 years ago when 60% of the power was provided by humans and animals - 15% by farm workers and 45% by animals. These estimates are based on an average value of power that a human or a draught animal or any of the machines generate per unit of land. An average human being notionally capable of yielding about 0.15 kilowatt power per hectare of land worked while a tractor can give 30.21kW. .

It is true that overall farm mechanization in India has just reached about 40% which may be a low figure when compared to 95% levels prevalent in many developed countries. Thus 40% of farm operations for major crops are done by mechanical power sources and 60% is still being done by non- power sources like humans and bullocks.which generate only 10% of the total power available in farming. Naturally such over dependence on non-power sources has its own limitations in terms of efficiency. To day tractors are used mainly for initial land preparation by most farmers.while many use mechanical means for threshing and irrigation. Free supply of power for pump sets has helped those farmers having more than two acres of land while marginal farmers are denied this vital input free. Core operations like transplanting, weeding, fertilizer use etc are still done by farm workers. The small size of land holdings does not permit use of power driven tools for these operations. The use of power tillers and other farm machinery is facilitated by their easy availability on rental basis for a cluster of villages. 

Many social experts feel that such rapid mechanization trend can create a human problem because machines are bound to displace humans in the farm hinterlands of the country resulting in huge unemployment and under employment. However the national statistical figures available most recently tell a different story. According to the figures from the government there were 111 million cultivators and 75 million agricultural labourers in 1991 working to about 185 million people directly engaged in farming activities. Look at the latest figures and what a change has come about defying any rational explanation. As per the 2011 census there were 119 million cultivators and a whopping 144 million agricultural labourers, making a total of 263 million people working on land. If population increase during this period  is factored, as against a population increased of 43% during the last twenty years, the number of landless agricultural laborers registered an astonishing increase of 93%. The primary reason for this is that there is nowhere else where this army of under-employed people can find work, forcing them to crowd into agriculture or related rural work. It also pushes up migration to cities in search of jobs. 

The MNREGA, a novel initiative from the government to provide sustenance to persons not finding income generating activities, especially during the non-agricultural season in many rural areas has definitely helped to alleviate the situation to some extent. According to some estimates government had spent over 2 lakh crore rupees between 2007 and 2014 on this much touted welfare scheme though there is nothing much to show vis-a-vis permanent assets created, as per the original intention of the planners. Another paradox that is glaring is that there are not many takers for jobs offered under MNREGA with more than half the allocation remaining unspent for want of demand! Probably this program may have to be revisited for bringing about appropriate changes immediately to serve the purpose and create assets in the area of operation. 

If there are 144 million landless agricultural laborers hanging around the villages, largely under employed, what is the government going to do to prevent such a colossal waste of human resources year after year which is bound to go up if the present trend of agricultural mechanization continues at the current pace?  As there does not appear to be any clear policy orchestration still, are we going to see more and more people in the rural areas being pushed to poverty due to this?  In the light of the big push being given to the "Make in India" policy of the new government in the coming years, why not create massive industrial townships with adequate infrastructure for skill development in many rural areas with supporting family care facilities so that the vast population of under employed people, wasting most of their time, are absorbed by the industry on a regular basis? After all per in acre employment, agriculture cannot compete with industry and boosting manufacturing sector can be a sure way of utilizing the otherwise wasted man power. Reports from China indicate that large scale shifting of rural population to specially built smart towns and transferring the land to giant American agricultural companies with most modern technology and deep pockets are being attempted to expand the food production to meet future needs of a burgeoning population. This is not to suggest that we must ape China but the idea of rehabilitating rural population through such novel out of the box thinking is necessary to save the country from a potential melt down in our rural hinterlands causing turmoil all around.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

Pulses production in India-Will it ever meet the domestic demand?

Pulses or legumes constitute a major component in the diet of Indian population which is predominantly vegetarian in their eating habits both by tradition as well as due to economic compulsions. Though most can eat animal based foods like meat, fish and egg, due to limited income per family they cannot buy these expensive food items at the prevailing market prices. Milk is another protein source which is produced in India adequately but here also the average price of Rs 30 per liter makes its proteins much more costlier than that in pulses. Most pulses have protein contents of 23-25% on dry weight basis while in fluid milk it is only about 5% on fresh weight basis. In the case of meat it works out to a protein content of about 21-25%. Cost wise the costs per kg of protein from these three sources are Rs 300 from pulses, Rs 600 from milk and Rs 1000 from meat. No wonder people will less per capita income are compelled to to opt for plant proteins to meet their health need of 50 gm of proteins per person every day. 

Some pundits feel that plant proteins are not of high quality when measured on scales of Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) or Biological Value (BV), they being deficient in one or more of essential amino acids that human body cannot make in vivo. Probably this may be true but what one can do if he cannot afford high quality protein containing foods like meat? This is where food and nutrition science come to their help. Nature has a diversified source of plants containing proteins of different amino acid profile and therefore by judicial blending of different pulses and cereals one can get all the needed amino acids readily from such mixed diets. If Net Protein Utilization (NPU) another yardstick to measure protein quality is taken into consideration, egg ranks high with 90% plus mark followed by milk (80% plus), meat (65% plus), legumes (50-60%) and whole grains (50-60%). Two of the three limiting amino acids that humans cannot make in vivo viz Methionine is low in pulses and Lysine is low in grains. Considering that in a composite diet consumed by a vegetarian both legumes and grains are present and therefore the over all protein quality does not suffer from a nutritional perspective.

India being the largest producer and consumer of pulses has always been short of this vital commodity, forcing it to resort to large scale imports, some times almost 25% of its need being met by imports from countries like Canada, Myanmar, Australia, Russia and USA. According to government sources the country was supposed to have produced during 2013-2014 about 19 million tons (mt) with import of about 1.4 mt supplementing the availability to meet the demand of 21 mt within the country. What is disappointing is that the production of pulses has been stagnating during the last 5 years hovering between 18 and 19 mt annually. Why the country has not been able to raise production is a complex question and the international prices of these pulses fluctuate widely depending on Indian imports. In 2009-10 and 2012-13 the average imports were around 3.5 mt per year. Only in 2013-14 the imports saw a dramatic dip with only 1.4 mt being sourced from outside. Interestingly government offers decent minimum support prices (MSP)  to pulses ranging from Rs 2950 to Rs 4500 per quintal depending on which pulse one is talking about.

In the domestic demand situation Bengal gram or Chick Pea is at the top consumption being 9.7 mt followed by Tur at 3.3 mt, Moong and Urad at 3 mt each. Others account for another 3 mt. Interestingly Dry Peas account for the highest import being about 1.33 mt followed by Masur at 0.71 mt, Pigeon Pea at 0.47 mt and Chick Pea at 0.28 mt. Though in the strict sense Dry Pea is not a legume as is being understood by many, it is used in fresh or frozen form as a vegetable; nonetheless it does belong to leguminous family. Considering that India is the largest importer of edible oils, almost 3 times the quantity of legumes imported, government is justified in persisting with out sourcing pulses because of the health implications of pulses in Indian diet. However not taking enough efforts in achieving self sufficiency in pulses production cannot be condoned. Besides, neglecting the role of pulses in the food security scheme of the country can be disastrous in the long run for the health of Indian population, especially that segment having low per capita income.  

Talking about prices of various pulses within the country there does not appear to be any valid basis for some of the popular pulses being priced exorbitantly high making it beyond the reach of common man who either has to reduce pulse consumption suiting his purse or avoid buying them altogether. Same goes for edible oils also which are very highly priced, some of them costing as high as Rs 200 per liter to the consumer at the retail level. One of the demands made by pulse growers' community is that pulses like Tur and Chick pea must be included in the PDS food basket, priced reasonably, for the low income groups to get access to them. Manipulation of prices of edible oils and pulses is rampant with hording becoming a standard practice in the face of a soft governance system in the country. Will the government at least wake up now and "catch the bull by its horn" to give succor and relief to the much harried citizen?

The overwhelming obsession with cereals and sugarcane by the government is not understandable considering the astronomical import costs incurred while outsourcing pulses and edible oils draining billions of dollars of foreign exchange year after year causing hemorrhage to the public exchequer. As a part of National Food and Agricultural Policy of the country, oil seeds and pulses deserve priority considerations and all other crops, except cereals must play a sub-ordinate role. What ever be the cost there is an urgent need to prioritize allocation of resources from the government to raise all the food needs of the population qualitatively and quantitatively in the coming years. Government must be ruthless in restricting cultivation of non-essential crops so that adequate fertile land and inputs are diverted to the three crops viz, cereals, pulses and oil seeds. 

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com 

SELF RELIANCE IN EDIBLE OIL AND PULSES-INDIA'S WOES!

Edible oils and pulses play a significant role in the diets in India where the population by nature or due economic compulsions are predominantly herbivores. Especially critical is the place of pulses in the diet as they provide a major part of the proteins needed for balanced nutrition. In contrast oils constitute the energy source, supposed to contribute about 30% of biological energy in the diet. On an average humans need about 50-60 gm each of oils and pulses to meet the body needs and this requirement can be met from a variety of sources including pulses, oil seeds and extracted oils from seeds like groundnut, oil palm, soybean, cotton seed, mustard, sesame and others like maize germ, rice bran etc. While India produces about 20 million tons(mt) of pulses annually, its edible oil production is stagnating at around 8 mt since 2003-2004.

In spite of the critical shortage of the above two food crops ever since independence, not much could be done in raising their production due to many reasons. Historically India always placed higher priority to production of cereals like rice and wheat through attractive minimum support price policies till the year 2000 and farmers were always attracted by such incentives to cultivate more cereals than pulses and oil seeds. Though the MSP levels were raised 92% in the case of mustard to 212% for sunflower between 2001 to 2013, the production of these two crops still languished and the country is at a loss as to what has to be done to raise their production. The history of repeated imports of edible oils and pulses continue causing a hemorrhagic out flow of foreign exchange year after year to prevent price escalation in the domestic market.

While in 200-2001, the proportion of imports of oils was less than 50% ( 5 mt out of 11 mt) of the country's need, to day the corresponding figure stands at a whopping 60%( 10.5 mt out of 18 mt)! Domestic production increased by just 40% during these 13 years while imports more than doubled. . While annual per capita use of oil is about 92 kg in Argentina, 60 kg in the EU countries, 55 kg in America, in India it is a paltry 15 kg. The world average is more than 25 kg, almost double that in India. Of course nutritionists may argue that low consumption of fat is a win-win situation as high fat consumption is implicated in many disease like CVD, Hypertension, Diabetes and Obesity!  Probably if the present spurt in oil prices with most oils being priced between Rs 100-200 per liter, how far demand for this culinary ingredient will be sustained is a million dollar question. However market optimists expect that by 2020 the demand may reach about 23 mt from the current availability of 18 mt. How the government is going to react to this situation remains to be seen.

Current pulse production of 20 mt is supplemented by import of about 4 mt and the daily per capita availability works out to about 70 gm though the National Sample Survey says that the consumption is only about less than 30 gm a day. Why this discrepancy is not clear but there is a trend which clearly shows that consumption of pulses is coming down significantly over the years and an Indian citizen was much better off in the first decade after independence compared to present day India as far as pulse consumption is concerned. In contrast per capita availability cereals is almost same to day compared to 60 years ago hovering around 450 gm a day. Whether this justifies successive government efforts in boosting cereal production at any cost is matter of debate. Interestingly in spite of imports of about 4 mt of pulses into India the market prices of pulses still rule very high, unaffordable to many low income citizens to buy the minimum need as per the nutritional guide.

The above convoluted picture raises another important question regarding the priority accorded to sugarcane in this country which is heavily steeped in politics, most powerful politicians being products of the sugar lobby which have tremendous influence on the thinking and working of the governments at the Center as well as in some states. As a nation it is time that the role of sugarcane in the agricultural landscape of the country is revisited. 25 mt of sugar produced from sugarcane cultivated in 53 million hectares of country's precious land can be considered laudable from agricultural achievement view but how relevant is this to the food needs of the country? Sugar is considered a white poison in the lives of people though it adds considerable pleasure to the human palate and its by product Alcohol inebriates the consumer! From nutrition angle sugar does not serve any purpose in the diet and its calories are no more superior to that contributed by starch contained in all cereals, pulses, root crops, fruits and many vegetables. Why not restrict the sugarcane cultivation through disincentives and punitive measures and divert the land for raising pulses and oil seeds in the national interest? If the sugarcane cultivation is reduced by 50% the resulting spared land can increase the present production of oil seeds and pulses very significantly.

To day the area under cultivation for oil seeds and pulses is 30 million hectares (mha) and 25 mha respectively. Imagine the impact of diverting 50% of the land currently under sugarcane (about 27 mha) to production of these vital crops on the economic health as well the human health of the population in the country. All it needs is to protect the income of farmers who are cultivating sugarcane at present which will be persuasive enough for them to switch over.to oil seeds and pulses.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com