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A wake-up call on food security

For the first time since 1998-99, the Union Government is going in for wheat imports to the extent of three million tonnes. The first consignment has arrived, while the State Trading Corporation has floated a tender for more. Wheat production in India this year has been almost the same as last year: 72 million tonnes. But procurement by the Food Corporation of India has been slow. During the ongoing rabi season, the procurement is estimated at 14.8 million tonnes, three to four million tonnes less than last year, and considerably less than the 20.6 million tonnes in 2001-02. As on April 1, the Government's buffer stocks stood at 1.8 million tonnes, some 2.2 million tonnes below the required minimum level. Commitments for the Targeted Public Distribution System have to be met. Should the monsoon perform below expectations this year, the drawals from stocks will increase — also because more grain will be needed for relief work. Behind the slow pace of procurement is the fact that the purchase price of Rs.650 a quintal plus a Rs.50 bonus has not matched the price offered by private traders. While the very philosophy behind the Minimum Support Price system and the need to rationalise some aspects of it are being debated, it has been argued that MSP should become a real instrument to provide profitable prices to farmers. After all, the effective price of imported wheat may work out to be considerably higher than the MSP offered: the total cost to the FCI including storage, taxes, labour, and transportation would be Rs. 1,308 a quintal. The timing of the decision to import and the announcement of a bonus created an impression of shortage, with many large producers keeping back stocks in anticipation of a sharp rise in prices and speculators getting into the act.

Annual production of wheat in India has stagnated around 72 million tonnes through this decade: seemingly there is some kind of a productivity barrier. The central concern here, with implications for long-term food security, is whether at the basic level there has been complacency on the acreage and yield fronts, and whether a pattern of farmers moving away from cereals and going in for high-value non-food crops is adding to the problem. As Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers, pointed out recently, the wheat import decision constitutes "a wake-up call." Agriculture again must become a national priority. India needs a 4 per cent farm sector growth in order to sustain an 8 per cent GDP growth. A fresh push to wheat yields may well be the mainstay of such an effort. The question has been raised whether the huge stocks of the late-1990s and early 2000s led to imprudent management of stocks. One more problem in the context of the imports relates to constraints on storage that the FCI has faced in past years. Also disturbing is the decision to lower the quality specifications following initial reports that there were unacceptably high levels of pesticide residue in one consignment.

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