Minor Project Report

FFoooodd SSeeccuurriittyy && IIttss MMeeddiiaa CCoovveerraaggee

Minor Project

For

Paper Code: MMJN 255

Master of Mass Media

GGS IP University

Delhi

Name: MAMTA

Enrolment No.:0202034008

MMM III Semester


1

Certificate

This is to certify that _MAMTA_, a student of Master of Mass media Guru

Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, enrolled for the batch 2008-10, with

Enrolment no. _0202034008_ completed her Minor Research Project ‘Food

Security and Its Media Coverage’ as part of Course Code: MMJN– 255.

Mr. Sarvesh Dutt Tripathi Dr. Ambrish

Saxena

Faculty Member Consultant-

CMS

Lecturer CMS GGSIP

University

GGSIP University

New Delhi

Date: 1.12.2009


2

Declaration

I, _Mamta_, a student of Master of Mass Media (MMM), with enrolment

number _0202034008_, batch_2008_, at Centre for Media Studies (CMS),

Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University Delhi, have undertaken Minor

Research Project (Course Code MMJN– 255) as prescribed in the third Semester.

This report based on my research and is submitted herewith for evaluation in the

Third Semester.

I reaffirm that the Minor Project submitted by me is an original piece of

writing and expression, and nothing has been lifted or copied from anywhere.

Date: 1.12.2009

Mamta


3

Preface

This report is based on the research which I have undertaken as prescribed

in the syllabus of the third semester of Master of Mass Media.

In the first part of the report a brief introduction of the topic, objective of

the research and the research methodology adopted is given. In the next section

complete description and analysis of the collected data is provided. Third section

of the report is about the results of the research. In the last I have tried to discuss

the topic and various aspects related to it and its contemporary relevance.


4

Acknowledgement

I am really grateful to Mr. Sarvesh Dutt Tripathi who gave me his guidance

in completing this project. This project is part of our paper Minor Project in

which we had to conduct a minor research study on a topic of current relevance.

It helped us in analysing, investigating and organising the data and writing the

paper on the basis of the research conducted.

I am also thankful to Dr. Ambrish Saxena who gave me his valuable

guidance and directions while selecting the topic.


5

Contents

Certificate

Declaration

Preface

Acknowledgement

1. Food Security and Its Media Coverage /6-9

• Abstract

• Introduction

• Objectives

• Research Methodology

2. Content Analysis /10-14

• Table 1

• Table 2

3. Conclusion /15-16

4. Discussion /17-29

• Global Food Situation

• Effect of Economic Crisis on Food Security

• Campaigning for Right to Food in the World

• Right to Food

• Right to Food Campaign in India

• Public Distribution System (PDS)

• Malnourishment

• Issues of BPL

• Public Investment in Agriculture

• Effects of Floods and Draught


6

• Green Revolution

• Decline in Agricultural Production

• Unemployment

• Purchasing power of people

• Growing Indebtedness and Farmer’s Suicides

• Growing Landlessness

• Impact of Neo-liberal Reforms

• Green Revolution

• National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NERGA)

5. Bibliography/30


7

Food Security and its Media Coverage

Abstract

When our country was faced with severe food scarcity in the 1960s media

played a big role in popularising the Green Revolution and made it a big success

with our country becoming self sufficient in food production. Over past few years

agricultural crisis with rising food prices has resulted into food insecurity. There

have been several reports and discussions on food security and right to food law.

After taking charge for the second term the United Progressive Alliance

government promised to enact the National Food Security Act as part of its 100

day’s agenda. However, the government could not present its draft in the

Parliament within 100 days leading to delay in the implementation of Food

Security Act. But this development sparked off a debate in the media about the

need for Food Security and other issues related to it in the wake of draught like

situation in the country and rising food prices. The poor monsoon and prevailing

drought conditions in large parts of the country have once again turned the

attention of policymakers to the problems of agriculture and food security.

Against this backdrop the purpose of this research is to find out how Indian print

media is covering the issue.

Introduction

Food security refers to its availability and access to all. The right to food for

the citizens is considered to be a basic human right in any welfare state or society.

Food security exists when the population does not live in hunger or fear of

starvation. United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization describes food

security as “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to

sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food

preferences for an active and healthy life.” According to United States

Department of Agriculture “Food security for a household means access by all

members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security

includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and

safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially


8

acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies,

scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies).”

The right to food is a part of the founding human rights texts of the post-

world war II era, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR), the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1976 (ICCPR) and the

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 19761 (ICESCR).

Other international legal instruments that incorporate the right to food include

human rights treaties on the rights of women, children, refugees, disabled

persons, and instruments relating to the conduct of states during armed conflict.

In the last decade the number of undernourished people has increased

slowly but steadily. The most recent FAO under-nourishment data covering all

countries in the world show that this trend continued into 2004–06. Despite

technological advances that have modernized the conditions of production and

distribution of food, hunger and

malnutrition still threaten the health and

well-being of millions of people around the

world.

Many people still consider that access

to food is a privilege rather than a basic


9

human right. It is estimated that about 35,000 people around the world die each

day from hunger and a large number of people (mainly women, children, and the

elderly) suffer from malnutrition.

In case of food shortage, it becomes a moral obligation for governments in

developing and developed countries to provide minimum dietary supplements to

their citizens, especially to poor and vulnerable sections. Being a democratic and

socialist republic, India has enshrined the right to life among the Fundamental

Rights in the Constitution. Besides this the right to food is included in the

Directive Principle of State Policy.

Objectives

The objective of this research is to find out how much coverage newspapers

are giving to the issues of food security. Some questions were formulated and

through the research process I tried to find out answers to them.

1. Are newspapers giving coverage to the issue of food security?

2. How much coverage they are giving to food security?

3. Are newspaper reports covering the food security, raising other issues

related to

o Unemployment

o PDS

o Storage of food grains

o Minimum support price (MSP)

o Effect of draught and flood

o Malnourishment

o Need for monitoring mechanism

o Adverse impact of Globalisation on agriculture


10

o Irregularities in the method of identifying poor and fixing BPL

beneficiaries

o Decreasing production of food grains

4. Are they discussing the problems in Targeted Public Distribution System

(TPDS)?

5. Are they discussing the role of existing policies like ICDS, Antodaya Anna

Yojana and NREGA in providing food security to the poor?

6. Are they raising the point that most of the people don’t have BPL cards

and other aspects related to it?

Research Methodology

For conducting content analysis two national daily newspapers, namely, The

Indian Express and The Hindu were selected. Articles related to food security

were collected from the two newspapers published from August 15 to September

15, 2009. After collecting the data qualitative and quantitative content analysis

was done. A list of issues related to food security was made and on the basis of the

list how many issues were covered in the reports were determined. For

conducting quantitative content analysis I tried to find out how many reports

appeared in both the newspapers in a month’s time and how much print area has

been dedicated to them in the whole newspaper. To measure the print area of a

report in the whole newspaper total percentage area of a report was calculated.

Supplements are excluded while calculating total percentage area of a news

report or feature.


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Content Analysis

The data was collected from the two daily newspapers, The Indian Express and The Hindu, published from August 15 to September 15, 2009.

Table 1

Issues Date

The Indian

Express The Hindu

1. Raising of the quantity

of food grain to be

provided under National

Food Security Act

(NFSA) to 35 kg

Aug. 20

Aug. 27

�

�

2. Demand of cutting of

price from Rs 3 per kg to

Rs 2 per kg under NFSA

Aug. 20

Aug. 27

�

�

3. Method to identify poor Aug. 20

Aug. 27

�

�

4. NREGA Aug. 15

Aug. 27

�

�

5. Need for a monitoring

mechanism and fix

accountability

Aug. 15

Aug. 18

�

�

6. BPL Aug. 21 �


12

Aug. 27

Sept. 14

�

�

7. Problems with TPDS and

reforms

Aug. 21

Aug. 27

�

�

8. Elimination of APL from

the PDS and the

proposed law

Aug. 18

Aug. 21

�

�

9. PDS (Universal) Aug. 21

Aug. 27

�

�

10. Malnourishment,

hunger and starvation

deaths

Aug. 21

Aug. 27

�

�

11. Storage Aug. 21 �

12. Direct cash Transfer to

the beneficiaries

Aug. 18

Aug. 21

�

�

13. Antyodaya Anna Yojana Aug. 18

Aug. 21

Aug. 27

�

�

�

14. Rising food prices Aug. 27

Aug. 31

�

�

15. Livelihood Security

(Right to work, Social

security, etc.)

Aug. 18

Aug. 27

�

�


13

16. Criticism of draft of the

Right to Food Bill

Aug. 15

Aug. 27

�

�

17. People’s access to food Aug. 21

Aug. 27

�

�


14

Table 2

The Indian Express

Length:45cm one page

Breadth: 36cm

The Hindu

Length: 56.8cm one page

Breadth: 35.5cm

Total Number of reports: 4 Total Number of reports: 3

1. Date: August 15

Title: Whose right is it anyway?

Feature on Op-ed

4 column

Length of the report: 28.8cm

Breadth of the report: 22.5cm

Total pages: 24 (minus supplements)

Total %age area of report: 1.66%

(minus supplements)

Date: August 21

Title: States oppose centre’s

Proposal, insist on food for all

Report –page 12

5 column

Length of the report:16.5cm


Total pages: 20(minus

supplements)

Total %age area of report:

0.86%(minus supplements)

2. Date: August 18

Title: Govt. considers tribunals for

better food security

Report – page 16

3 column



Date: August 27

Title: Legislating against hunger

Feature –Page 10

4 column

Length of the report: 26cm

Breadth of the report: 25cm

Total pages: 22 (minus


15

Total pages: 20 (minus supplements)


supplements)


14.65%

3. Date: August 20

Title: Food Security Act likely to be

delayed

Report – page 4

2 column



Total pages: 24


(minus supplements)

Date: August 31

Title: Right to Food Act a

gimmick: Karat

Report –page 6

2 column

Length of the report:14cm


Total pages: 20


0.58% (minus supplements)

4. Date: September 14

Title: Food security as per govt’s

Poverty Estimates: EGoM

Report on Business Page: page 15

3 column



Total pages: 20


(minus supplements)


16

Conclusion

The analysis of the data shows that

the newspapers are giving coverage to

the issue of food security and the other

aspects related to it. After conducting a

study of two newspapers, The Indian

Express and The Hindu, from August 15

to September 15 it was found that The

Indian Express published four reports

and The Hindu published three reports

(see the chart and Table 2).

The following charts show the total print area dedicated to the reports in

each newspaper.

Table 1 gives the list of various aspects related to food security covered in

the reports of both the newspapers. Overall seventeen of them were covered in

the two newspapers out of which eleven were covered by The Indian Express and


17

sixteen by The Hindu. However, the number of reports published in The Indian

Express was more.

Aspects related to food

security like need for universal

PDS, monitoring mechanism,

malnourishment and hunger,

etc. were covered frequently.

On the other hand, aspects like

unemployment, lower

minimum support price (MSP),

decreasing production of food

grain, etc were not covered in

the reports.

TPDS and other welfare schemes and their role in providing food security

are also being discussed in the news reports. The flaws in their implementation

and problems with the targeted schemes were also mentioned in the reports.

All the reports in which the issue of BPL appeared raised the points that

there is need to identify the population afresh and state governments have issued

BPL cards to only few families.


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Discussion

Global Food Situation

Unfortunately, a number of global economic and ecological problems

continue to limit the prospect of global food

security. World per capita cereal production

(62% of least-developed countries’ [LDCs’]

food consumption), for example, has been

increasing only marginally in recent years. In

fact, it has even been on the decline in sub-

Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the

Caribbean, particularly in low-income

countries struck by economic reforms, natural

and other disasters, and other factors. The

LDCs’ dependence on net food imports has

been growing and is set to continue to grow; currently, 104 of 132 LDCs are net

importers, although imports have brought little relief overall (Singer 1997). In

sub-Saharan Africa, the number of chronically undernourished people more than

doubled in 1970–91, notwithstanding that this region depended on food aid for

half its total food imports. The population of this region is expected to more than

double by 2020 (de Haen and Lindland 1997).

Regional and global economic crises and chronic problems of

underdevelopment make the situation particularly bad in the developing world.

Economic informalization clearly accompanies an economy’s disintegration. Real

prices in domestic food markets have increased over the last few years and are set

to increase further. To improve food security and global food supplies, policy

scenarios of the 2020 Vision Initiative require increased exports of staple foods

from industrialized countries to the LDCs (von Braun 1997). But insufficient


19

purchasing power among the world’s poorest 800 million people remains a

primary obstacle to such strategies.

Multilateral agreements in trade and investment further threaten the

availability and accessibility of food for large segments of the world’s population.

Many experts agree that the reduction in world surpluses and the increase in

international prices encouraged by the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement

on Tariffs and Trade pose an immediate threat to regions already suffering severe

food insecurity. The duration of this threat is unknown.

Global prospects for improving food security are further threatened by

environmental limitations, even in Green Revolution countries, and by growing

poverty. In Asia, a large share of the population will soon be without access to

adequate food supplies (Zarges 1997). So, despite the technical modernization of

food production and distribution, hunger and malnutrition still undermine the

health and well-being of millions of people and actually seem to be worsening,

particularly among low-income urban residents. This led Dr Uwe Werblow (1997)

of the European Commission in Brussels to recommend favouring production of

more traditional food crops in rural areas and developing non-land-using

production in peri-urban and urban areas.

2009 has been a devastating year for the world’s hungry, marking a

significant worsening of an already disappointing trend in global food security

since 1996. The global economic slowdown, following on the heels of the food

crisis in 2006–08, has deprived an additional 100 million people of access to

adequate food. There have been marked increases in hunger in all of the world’s

major regions, and more than one billion people are now estimated to be

undernourished.

Prompted by rising food prices in 2008, riots and demonstrations erupted

in over 40 countries around the world. Unable to afford adequate food, many of

the poor in these countries and others are at higher risk for malnutrition, which


20

can have devastating and long-lasting impacts on those suffering now and future

generations. Food security is a foundation for building social and economic

development. It depends on agriculture to provide sustenance, incomes and

livelihoods for the world’s rural poor – 2.1 billion living on less than $2 per day.

Effect of Economic Crisis on Food Security

The impact of the economic crisis on the poor and food insecure is likely to

be substantial, especially in the light of negative impact of soaring food and fuel

prices already experienced by the most vulnerable population groups during

2006–08. The more difficult global economic environment has a significant

influence on national food security in a number of poorer countries, many of

which have become increasingly dependent on grain imports over the past

decade. This reliance on food imports was spurred by trade liberalization policies

and the expansion and improvement of the global transportation system.

Increased reliance on grain imports has helped keep prices more affordable for

consumers, but the lack of domestic agricultural growth that drove the imports

has exposed many countries to volatility on international markets.

Campaigning for Right to Food in the World

Right to food campaign has been taken up worldwide at the behest of UN

and civil society of various countries. Even the likes of Bill Gates and Warren

Buffet have adopted tiny African nations to ensure the farmers grow more food.

In recent years, a number of countries have begun drafting legislation

designed to realise the right to food. Draft bills on the right to food are making

their way through the legislative process in South Africa, Nicaragua, Mexico, Peru

and Uganda (FAO 2009: 66-68). In 2005, Guatemala became the first country in

Latin America to pass a law incorporating the right to food. Brazil has followed,

passing the Federal Law on Food and Nutritional Security in 2006. In India, civil

society has successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to enforce the

government’s commitments under various food and nutrition schemes.

Right to Food


21

There are some important points that need to be noted in any discussion of

food security. First, a targeted approach that seeks to restrict food security to

some defined poor households is cumbersome, expensive and ineffective. There

are the well known errors inherent in targeting, of unjustified exclusion of the

genuinely poor and unwarranted inclusion of the non-poor. The proportion of the

population that is nutritionally deprived is significantly larger than the "poor"

population, and in many states they are not completely overlapping categories

either. And in any case, households — and people within them — can fall in or out

of poverty, however defined, because of changing material circumstances.

Similarly they can also go from being food-secure to food-insecure in a short

time. The reasons can vary: crop failures, sharp rises in the price of food,

employment collapses, health issues that divert household spending, the

accumulation of debt, and so on. Monitoring each and every household on a

regular basis to check whether any of these or other features has caused it to

become food-insecure is not just administratively difficult, it is actually

impossible.

Second, the notion that a universal scheme that provides subsidised food to

all households is too expensive is not tenable either. Consider the maximal

possible estimate of such spending. If all households in the country are provided

35 kg of food grain per month, that would come to around 90 million tonnes. At

current levels of subsidy this would cost around Rs. 120,000 crores. This may

seem a lot, but the current food subsidy already amounts to around Rs. 50,000

crores, so this is an additional Rs. 70,000 crores — or around 1.5 per cent of the

gross domestic product.

Surely, this is not too much to allocate so as to ensure that no one goes

hungry in what should be a civilised society? In any case, compare the amount of

Rs. 70,000 with the huge amounts (nearly Rs. 300,000 crores) that have been

given away as tax benefits and other concessions to corporates over the past year,

and it becomes a trivial amount.


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Third, any programme of national food security must be combined with a

concentrated focus on improving food grain production in the country, so that we

are not dependent upon imports in a volatile global market. This requires much

more attention to the requirements of farmers, and speedy implementation of the

many reforms that have already been suggested by the Farmers’ Commission to

improve the productivity and financial viability of farming, particularly of food

crops.

Fourth, to make this successful it is also necessary to avoid instability in

domestic prices of food grain and curb speculative tendencies. This doesn’t

simply mean only cracking down on hoarders, which is part of the official

publicity around any period of price rise. It also requires preventing speculative

activity in futures markets, which means that there must be a ban on futures

markets in all essential commodities.

"Food security has three components," says Prof M S Swaminathan. "The

first is food availability, which depends on food production and imports. The

second is food access, which depends on purchasing power. The third, food

absorption, is a function of safe drinking water, environmental hygiene, primary

health care and education."

According to Prof Swaminathan, a community food and water security

movement, coupled with a universal public distribution system - characterised by

common and differentiated entitlements, will help achieve the goal of a hunger-

free India. “It has been 40 years since the Green Revolution and yet we don’t have

adequate storage facilities. There is an urgent need to set up safe and hygienic

grain storage facilities in at least 50 locations in the country, each capable of

holding a million tonne of food grains.”

Several national programmes — Targeted PDS, Mid-Day Meal Scheme,

National Food for Work Programme, Antyodaya Anna Yojna, Integrated Child

Development Scheme, etc., — are already operational in the country to help

achieve the target of food security.


23

Availability and maintaining continuous stock of rice and wheat for

distribution may prove to be a hindrance in meeting the aims and objectives of

the proposed Act. As production and procurement have been fluctuating in the

country along with poor price policies the desired procurement is not guaranteed.

The price received by the farmer is usually not good enough to cover the cost of

production. This is a big disincentive for the farmers to sell the produce to the

government.


24

Right to Food Campaign in India

THE right-to-food (or RTF) campaign was formally launched in 2001 with

an innovative mix of strategies, merging streams of social activism that had

produced positive results in their own domains. The campaign depended in part

on formally petitioning the judiciary for the enforcement of the right of every

Indian to adequate nourishment. In this, it was inspired by preceding rulings of

the highest court, which held that in cases of Fundamental Rights, it was willing

to give little latitude to governmental pleas of financial stringency. Another tack

that the RTF campaign adopted was awareness building, to bring moral pressure

to bear on the administration at its interface with the people most vulnerable to

food insecurity. Typically, the method employed - borrowed from the closely

related campaign on the right to information - was the "jan sunwai" or public

hearing, at which official claims of funds disbursement and assets creation were

matched against the realities perceived by the supposed beneficiaries.

A number of hearings of the RTF petition have been held in the Supreme

Court since July 2001 and a series of orders of far-reaching significance issued. In

November 2001, the Supreme Court directed all States to introduce a mid-day

meal scheme (MDMS) for students in government and government-aided

schools. It also ordered that the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS)

which was patchy and extremely selective in its coverage, be extended to provide

universal coverage for all children below the age of six. From figures that had

been submitted by commissioners appointed to assist in its deliberations, the

Supreme Court concluded that at the minimum, this required that the number of

anganwadi centres administering the ICDS needed to be increased from 600,000

to 1.4 million.

Public Distribution System (PDS)

In the post-Independence era, the country faced a problem of constant

poverty and food insecurity in different regions of the country and more stress


25

was laid on poverty alleviation strategies, which in turn was supposed to have a

positive impact on food security. The food crisis in the mid-sixties demanded a

much wider government intervention to solve the problem, and therefore a Public

Distribution System (PDS) was established. The major achievement of the PDS

has been coverage of a substantial population of the country under its network,

although there were significant cross-state variations in the volume of off-take.

The PDS was criticised for its urban bias and its failure to serve effectively

the poorer sections of the population. However, the PDS has been subjected to

various systemic problems. One of the major problems was inefficiency in

functioning of the Food Corporation of India machinery, resulting in a huge

increase in operational cost. Other things like leakage through widespread

corruption, illegal sales, creation of false ration cards, accession of ration facilities

by relatively well-off households, etc. made the situation worse.

However, the working of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)

introduced in 1997 has often come under fire. There is growing concern that the

food security scenario is actually worsening in the country. The experience since

1997 suggests that the system seriously compromises the achievement of the

goals of household and individual food and nutrition security. There has been a

significant fall in per capita levels of food consumption and calorie intake. There

has also been a significant decline in per capita daily availability of food grains.

Malnourishment

According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS), conducted in 2005-

06, in India 46 per cent of children below three years are underweight; 33 per

cent of women and 28 per cent of men have a body mass index (BMI) below

normal; 79 per cent of children aged six to 35 months have anemia, as do 56 per

cent of married women aged 15-49 years and 24 per cent of married men in that

age group; 58 per cent of pregnant women have anemia.


26

Issues of BPL

There are many flaws in identifying poor and ascertaining the BPL

households. There are as many poverty figures as the number of entities that have

undertaken this exercise. So, the government, represented by the Planning

Commission, says 27.5% people are below the poverty line. But other entities,

related and unrelated to the government, put it somewhere between 42% and

77%. Even among those that adopt the same methodology, there is wide variance.

Fact remains, in all government lists till date, there has been a reasonable

component of inclusion of the non-poor and exclusion of the very poor. “There

are two main reasons,” says development economist Jean Dreze. One, any scoring

method to identify poor families is bound to be a “hit and miss” affair. The causes

of poverty are diverse and cannot be reduced to a simple arithmetic formula, he

says. Two, even a theoretically perfect method would involve errors at the

implementation stage because of mistakes, cheating, social exclusion, etc. “This is

particularly the case when the scoring system is based on unverifiable criteria, as

happened in 1992, making it easy to cheat,” points out Dreze.

According to an estimate, of those classified as poor under the NSS, only

52% were BPL card-holders.

Public Investment in Agriculture

Public investment in the field of agriculture has also decreased from 3% of GDP

to 1.7%. With the expansion of industries and increase in population the area of

agricultural land has been decreasing.

Effects of Floods and Draught

Apart from this our food grain production is continuously being affected

either by flood or draught. There has been a sharp decline in crop productivity.

During 2008-09, agricultural growth dropped to a dismal 1.6 per cent.


27

Our agriculture is largely dependent on the monsoon. The Economic Survey

has projected the food output in 2008-09 at 230 million tonnes. It was 230.8

million tonnes in 2007-08. The scenario for 2009-10 is far from encouraging not

least because of the inadequate monsoon in certain states.

Green Revolution

The Green Revolution in wheat and rice has now reached a dead end; it has

not made an impact on cultivation in the rain-fed area and in respect of coarse

grains and pulses. Indeed, it has had an adverse effect on agricultural

environment. Both qualitative and quantitative has been the degradation of land,

water and bio-resources; water-logging and excessive salinity have rendered

fertile lands uncultivable. Post-harvest losses have been substantial.

A second Green Revolution through genetically modified (GM) technology

referred to as “gene revolution” is being advocated to improve productivity. But it

must be ensured that crop biotechnology products are safe; GM food poses the

risk of organ abnormalities. This technology has, however, been accepted by

farmers the world over.

Decline in Agricultural Production

There has been a sharp decline in the agricultural growth rate and

stagnation in agricultural production. The Planning Commission’s document The

Agricultural Strategy for the Eleventh Plan shows that the agricultural GDP

growth declined from 3.62% during 1984-85 to 1995-96 to 1.85% during 1995-96

to 2004-2005. The state wise trends indicate that the larger declines in

agricultural growth have occurred in states that are predominantly rain fed.

The most disturbing feature is the stagnation in the production of food

grains, which has resulted in a decline in the per capita production of food grains.

The per capita annual production of cereals has declined from 192 kg in 1991-95

to 174 kg in 2004-07 and pulses from 15 kg to 12 kg. Available data on fruits and


28

vegetables production also suggest that there is a sharp deceleration in recent

years. National Horticultural Board data shows growth slowing from 5.5% per

annum during the 1990s to 2.5% during 2000-01 to 2005-06.

Unemployment

The NSS 61st Round on Employment and Unemployment Situation in

India, 2004-05 estimates the proportion of the workforce employed in

agriculture and allied activities to be around 58.5%. This was around 62% in

1993-94. Aggregate employment growth in the rural areas had fallen from 2.03%

during 1987-88 to 0.66% during 1993-94 to 1999-00. However, the data shows

some increase in the rural employment growth rate to 1.97% during 1999-00 to

2004-05.

Purchasing power of people

One fourth population of the country doesn’t have the purchasing power to

buy food. Per capita annual food grain demand has fallen in 2004-05 to 157 kg,

the colonial average during 1937-41.

According to NSS 59th round Survey the average expenditure of a farmer is

Rs 503. The average for Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa is even less

than Rs 400. The poverty line is Rs 425 per month. According to P. Sainath

(March 2006 lecture in Jaipur) crores of people are living at Rs 8 per day.

Growing Indebtedness and Farmer’s Suicides

The NSS 59th round Survey on Indebtedness of Farmer Households

conducted in 2003 reported that 48.6% of farmer households were indebted. A

similar survey in 1991 found only 26% of farmer households to be indebted. Due

to the squeeze in farm incomes and dwindling employment opportunities, there

has been a phenomenal rise in the level of indebtedness within the peasantry.


29

According to unofficial figures, the number of suicides by peasants has gone

up to more than 2 lakhs across the country since the mid-1990s. A major cause of

such suicides is the inability of peasants to pay the debt. In most cases, the debts

are taken from private moneylenders as there is a massive decline in agricultural

credit from banks and co-operatives has reduced access especially of small

cultivators to institutional credit. A large number of farmers have no access at all

to formal credit as a result debt relief packages don’t work. Rural banks had

increased their branches from 16% to 60% by 1991 but by 2006 their number

declined to nearly 48% and more than 3000 branches had closed down leaving

the farmers dependent on moneylenders for credit.

Growing Landlessness

The proportion of rural households that did not have access to land for

cultivation in India has increased by 10.6 per cent between 1993-94 and 2004-05.

The data show that the incidence of households that do not cultivate land has

increased in almost all Indian States in the previous decade, Kerala, Jammu &

Kashmir and Assam being the only exceptions. The increase in the share of

households without access to land for cultivation is higher for Adivasi households

and non SC/ST households than for Dalit households.

Impact of Neo-liberal Reforms

The focus on deficit reduction through expenditure reduction by successive

neo-liberal governments at the Centre has led to a large input costs. The removal

of quantitative restrictions of agricultural imports and the maintenance of

imports tariffs at levels well below the bound rates by government has led to a

huge increase in agricultural imports and consequent fall in domestic prices of

agricultural outputs, especially during the period of global decline in prices of

agricultural commodities from the late 1990s to the early part of the present

decade.


30

The financial liberalization served to both limit access to institutional credit

for the peasantry and other small products as well as raise the cost of credit

through higher interest rates in the formal sector as well as through forcing

increased reliance on high cost informal sector credit. The deflationary

macroeconomic policies led to a significant decline of purchasing power as well as

a collapse of rural infrastructure, thus impacting both supply and demand

conditions in the rural economy negatively. The collapse of the public distribution

system (PDS) in most parts of the country due to the switch overt to targeting

system worsened the rural economic crisis and increased the extent and depth of

rural deprivation.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NERGA)

Though there are problems in implementation and lack of awareness of

working people of their rights under the Act, the NREGS has made a difference to

the lives of the rural labouring population. The Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar

Yojana operating in 586 districts in 2005-06 generated 82 crore person days of

employment. But the NREGS operating in 200 districts in 2006-07 generated 91

crore person days of employment.

To conclude the discussion the following points needs to be given a due

consideration and media should also raise these issues.

In order to enhance food grain availability, recognising that the majority of

agricultural holdings in India are small in extent, the focus must be on enhancing

production and viability of smallholdings. For this purpose, we need to step up

public investment in irrigation and rural infrastructure and provide other forms

of State support including credit, post-harvest storage facilities such as rural

warehouses and processing.

Government must expand the minimum support price (MSP) system, based

on the cost of production including reasonable rate of return on investment and

ensuring prompt and open-ended purchase for all major crops.


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Following up on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)

and recognising that the right to food and the right to livelihood are intimately

related, we need to move towards a comprehensive “Food and Employment

Guarantee Act”.

The TPDS must be replaced by a universal PDS with uniform prices

affordable to the poor. The centralisation that took place under the TPDS should

be reversed and state governments should, in the first instance, have the right to

determine the required allocation under PDS for their state.


32

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