The Hindu Business Line : Looming food inflation and crisis

The article “UPA’s Marie Antoinette syndrome (Business Line, September 26) makes a compelling point about food inflation and the apparent lack of concern among government circles. His observations, “…not a single politician has mentioned the high food prices…it is not an election issue…the government, in Marie Antoinette-like vagueness, seems busy with global issues…”, remind me of Keynes’ statement that governments will do the rational only after trying all other alternatives.

The issue is not one of a one-off indifferent monsoon or food inflation in an aberrant year, but of an emerging food shortage in the world. I had pointed this out through an article in Business Line on May 13. I wish to emphasise two principal points: First, that the world is faced with tight food supplies; second and additionally, India is enmeshed in a pulses crisis.

At the end of the Second World War, the Earth supported a global population of about 2.5 billion people; today that figure has swelled to over six billion and is expected to peak at nine billion by 2050. It took thousands of years for the world’s population to reach 2.5 billion, but merely another century to more than treble. The per capita availability of arable land, which was one acre just a few decades back, will decrease to one-third of an acre by 2050.

When the world was faced with a looming food crisis after the Second World War, science and public policy stepped in to modernise the ancient practice of agriculture. Remember Dr Norman Borlaug.

Food wastage

The farming fillip was so successful that, since the 1970s, a new generation has grown up — one to whom food availability and prices are of little concern. This shows the extravagance of food consumption and wastage. In the US, about 50 per cent of all food produced is thrown away. Britain squanders 20 million tonnes of food each year and the Japanese $100 billion worth of it in the same period. If the affluent nations stop wasting so much food, the world can perhaps manage with current levels of production and, possibly, feed all of its poor everywhere.

The tragedy of food wastage is not restricted to the developed world. A vast amount of food is wasted in India, a big producer of fruits and vegetables. Reducing waste ought to be, in the circumstances, an obvious priority.

However, like with free trade and global warming, food is often a victim of negotiations and geopolitics. That may be one reason why scientists are exploring the possibility of growing food in urban skyscrapers through new technologies.

Increasing world population, growth in developing nations and rapid urbanisation are spurring higher demand for food. Land degradation is leading to uncertainty about crop yields, and the dwindling availability of arable land. Now, for the first time in 35 years, the global demand for food will outstrip supply. Our food stocks are falling.

Demand-supply gap

According to a report drafted for ministers of the G8 nations, the world will face “a permanent food crisis and global instability unless countries act now to feed a surging population by doubling agricultural output”.

The demand-supply gap for food in India shows that although in the short-to-medium term, supply will about meet demand requirements, but within a decade, demand will outstrip supply for cereals, pulses, edible oil and sugar.

Of these commodities, the pulses, or daal, crisis is specific to India. A shortage of pulses can have devastating long-term effects on our national nutritional standards. The prices of pulses have reached astronomical levels this year and the government has, expectedly, expressed deep concern. The rise in prices is not an aberration; rather, it indicates a trend. Like with onions, which have on occasion become a critical factor in elections past, pulses could turn into a problem in the future.

The daal problem has been worsening gradually and is becoming a silent emergency, like the proverbial frog in the heating water, and all of those who ought to be concerned may not be even fully aware of it. Indians will suffer the most if India does not find a way out of the pulses crisis, because other societies do not depend as much as us on pod-bearing plants for proteins.

Why did pulses not follow the pattern of wheat, rice and the Green Revolution? Pulses in India are traditionally considered to be a residual crop, only suited for growth under rain-fed conditions when one can’t grow wheat or rice. The Green Revolution saw the country taking great strides in increasing the yields of rice and wheat. Along with this, the government’s procurement policy and strategy helped in the promotion of these cereals.

There have been no great technology breakthroughs with respect to pulses. Equally, no aggressive plan, commensurate with the crisis, is in place for pulses.

At 638 kg a hectare, India’s pulses yield is way below that of best-in-class countries, which produce about 1,800 kg a hectare. It is obvious that inadequate pest and nutrient management have led to lower yields, and then there are issues such as farmer perceptions of risk and cost, the absence of government procurement, lack of high-yielding varieties of seeds, and poor agricultural infrastructure.

The MoPu plan

Tata has pooled the resources of its Department of Economics and Statistics, the Tata Strategic Management Group and its operating companies Rallis, Tata Chemicals and Tata Consultancy Services to study India’s pulses problem. With the guidance of noted economist, Mr Y. K. Alagh, Chairman of the Institute of Rural Management Anand, former Union Minister and Member of the Planning Commission, a broad plan called Tata MoPu — which stands for ‘more pulses’ — has been developed.

Tata is proposing to create a knowledge exchange Web site in pulses, www.growmorepulses.com, which will be a community to inform the many, connect the engaged and excite the passionate. While rummaging in my library, I reconnected with a book published by Oxford and IBH Publishing Pulse Production and Opportunities. It contained the proceedings of a symposium organised by Hindustan Lever Research Foundation in 1982.

Dr Ashok Ganguly, the company chairman and a former Bombay Chamber president, had said in his welcome address, “…pulse is such an important integral part of the diet…that unless major steps are taken, we will contribute to calorie malnutrition as well as amino acid deficiencies…”

I am sobered that I am merely repeating what had been pointed out 27 years ago!

(The author is chairman of Rallis India and vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals. This article is adapted from his speech to the Bombay Chamber of Commerce on Sept 14)

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