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Food security a major concern

NEW DELHI: Even as the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) has lauded India’s farm sector growth, leading to a record foodgrain production during the 2007-08 season, it has expressed concern over the country’s food security in the years to come.

In its ‘Economic outlook for 2008-09’ released earlier this week, the council said: “Despite [the] recent upward trend in foodgrains production, India’s food security remains an area of concern.” It pointed out that as the demand for foodgrains grows over the years, greater attention will have to be paid to aspects such as irrigation and the use of power and fertilizers to enhance production in keeping with the require- ments.

The PMEAC’s observations are all the more critical in the light of the fact that it has projected agricultural growth in 2008-09 to slow down to less than half of what was achieved during the previous fiscal year.

The slump in growth has been mainly attributed to the scanty rainfall in some parts of the country during July this year.

“We project that GDP (gross domestic product) originating in agriculture and allied activities is likely to grow by 2 per cent in 2008-09, less than what it has done in the previous three years,” the PMEAC said.

The lower growth projection, it said, was in part due to the base effect of very high growth in 2007-08 and the weak southwest monsoon over peninsular, central and western India last month. The farm sector growth in 2007-08 was pegged at 4.5 per cent, which was higher that the 3.8 per cent increase achieved in 2006-07 but lower than 5.9 per cent in 2005-06.

The PMEAC report, however, noted that the resumption of rain since last week of July in the affected areas has the potential of significantly limiting crop damage. The council noted that, according to the report of the steering group on agriculture and allied sectors for the XI Plan, even as foodgrain production during 2007-08 was a record at 230.70 million tonnes, the demand is projected to increase to 250 million tonnes by 2011.

“There is consequently a challenging task ahead in bridging the demand-supply gap by accelerating the pace of domestic production of foodgrains,” it said.

Pointing to the areas of concern that merit attention, the council said that the major challenges, particularly in the production of foodgrains, were the slowdown in fertiliser, irrigation and energy use at the farm level coupled with technological stagnation.

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