50 years : From a Famine of Food to a Famine of Jobs

The world’s hunger fighters are beginning to see the need for a shift in strategy . . .

In the 1960s, this country set out to prevent famine by boosting agricultural production. The push was so successful that wheat and rice stockpiles approached 60 million tons. By 2001, India had its own grain export business.
But Murugesan, a 29-year-old illiterate peasant, was still hungry. He had no land to grow crops, and no steady income to buy food.
Last summer, an agricultural research foundation gave Murugesan some unusual advice: Drive a taxi. With the foundation’s help, he and 15 members of this rural village received a loan to buy a three-wheeled, battery-powered vehicle. The taxi business earns up to Rs 1200 a day and Mr. Manangatti takes home a monthly salary of about Rs 3000.
For the first time, he says, his family is regularly able to eat three nutritious meals a day. The Thirukanchipet taxi is a fresh approach to solving a jarring paradox. The world is producing more food than ever before as countries such as India, China and Brazil emerge as forces in global agriculture. But at the same time, the number of the world’s hungry is on the rise — including in India — after falling for decades.
Despite its overflowing granaries, India has more hungry people than any other country, as many as 214 million according to UN estimates, or one-fifth of its population. The paradox is propelling a shift in strategy among the world’s
hunger fighters.
International agencies that once encouraged
countries to solve starvation crises by growing more food are now tackling the more fundamental problem of rural poverty as well. The
old development mantra—produce more food, feed more people—is giving way to a new call: Create more jobs, provide income to buy
food.
Increasing production is great, but we have to think about the whole chain,” says M.S. Swaminathan, the 78-year-old scientist who helped
engineer India’s agriculture boom. India has been able to conquer its famine of food, he says. Now it is suffering from a “famine of jobs and livelihoods.”
The stark contrast between food production and rural poverty is helping to transform Indian politics.
The BJP’s alliance had overseen a boom in the country’s technology sector but was defeated in the May elections largely by the votes of a rural population that felt left behind. The party’s “India Shining” campaign, which
highlighted the country’s economic advances, was trumped by the
victorious Congress party, which ran on a platform of aiding farmers.
There is plenty of supply on hand to meet global demand. Over the past 35 years, the world’s food production has expanded faster than
its population.
But inadequate infrastructure, local corruption and rural poverty have prevented the chronically hungry—those who don’t eat enough to
fulfill basic standards —from gaining access to this bountiful
harvest.
After falling for decades, the estimated number of
undernourished in the developing world increased by 18 million to 798
million between 1997 and 2001.
In a typical year, about 90 million people are fed, many of whom are threatened with starvation in disaster situations such as drought. Most of the remaining 700
million live on isolated, stingy land, and have neither the money to buy food nor the ability to grow it. They’re beyond the reach of international feeding programs and also fall through national safety
nets.
It’s virtually impossible to simply hand out food surpluses to the hungry because of the cost and complexity of distribution. It would also turn recipients into permanent wards of the world.
“I believe in Gandhi’s strategy: Don’t turn people into beggars,” says Mr.Swaminathan.
Looking for solutions, countries are turning their attention to
permanent development projects such as road building that can foster economic activity for the rural poor, and connect them to markets for
their produce.
How do you embrace a plan to “end the cycle of famine”?
One plan for Ethiopia involves creating work programs that would
allow the five million people there dependent on aid to buy their own food. Earlier this year, the Chinese government said it would cut farming taxes and boost investment in rural areas.
The WFP, in one strategy shift, is emphasizing schools with a classroom-based feeding program that so far reaches 15 million. It’s designed to encourage children, who constitute about 300 million of the world’s hungry, to attend school and at the same time combat
malnutrition.
An ill-educated, unhealthy population can’t take advantage of an open economy.
India’s agricultural program of the 1960s, dubbed the Green
Revolution, was launched after the country suffered a series of famines.
Under the guidance of local and international agronomists and scientists, Indian farmers were introduced to hardy, fast-growing wheat strains and better use of fertilizer and irrigation. As a result, crop yields multiplied and in recent years India’s wheat production has topped 70 million tons, surpassing that of the U.S. The Indian government estimates that wheat output may pass 100 million tons in this decade.
In the country’s northern grain belt, wheat grows almost everywhere there is a level field, between houses and schools, and brick factories. During the harvest season, the roads are
clogged with tractors. As India’s grain production grew, so did its surpluses. By 2001, the national stockpile of rice and wheat was approaching 60 million tons,
according to the government. The country had also become one of the
world’s leading producers of fruits, vegetables and milk [see report on next page].
India set up a distribution network to supply surplus grain at reduced prices
to 180 million families.
But with inefficiency and local mismanagement plaguing distribution, it couldn’t move the grain fast enough through the system. Some even
spoiled in warehouses.
A 2002 government survey concluded that 48 per cent of children under five years old are malnourished. That’s an improvement from three decades ago. Even today, given rapid population growth, the proportion of chronically hungry Indians continues to fall. But in a sign that there are limits to the Green Revolution, the absolute number of hungry people in India began to rise again in the late 1990s.
With the cost of storing surpluses spiralling, the government opened
the door to grain exports in 2001. India sold more than 10 million tons of grain to overseas customers that year, mostly in Asia and the
Middle East.
How could the country export grain while so many in the country are hungry?
The grain surplus has been big enough to
allow for both export and distribution to the rural poor. “If [the
grain] didn’t reach the hungry people, it’s too bad, but it has
nothing to do with availability,” says a grain dealer.
The res ults of last month’s election in India are concentrating attention on the paradox of hunger. In the two states where the former BJP-led government fared especially badly—Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu—the gap between India’s high-tech centers and
surrounding farming areas has become the most pronounced.
It’s too early to know how fully the Congress-led government will implement its ideas. The Congress party and its allies have agreed to support minimum-wage public-works programs such as a guaranteed 100 days of employment for rural households. They have also promised to improve farmers access to credit and restructure outstanding debts.
Providing rural folk with an income to buy food is a theory tthat has to be extended through self-help groups.
The best the rural unemployed can hope for is seasonal work in rice paddies for Rs 50 to Rs 100 a day. How can small groups improve their credit worthiness? Micro-credit loans from Rs 50,000 upward can help the setting up of milk dairies.The daily income can be directed to repay loans. Members of such groups can jhope to afford
higher-quality grains sold in the private stores instead of that in government ration shops.

Courtesy : ZestEconomics.