The Hindu : New Delhi News : SAARC nations to set up Food Bank for emergencies

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Friday, Nov 07, 2008
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SAARC nations to set up Food Bank for emergencies

Gargi Parsai

India pledges to contribute153,200 tonnes of foodgrains

Pakistan and Bangladesh have agreed to contribute 40,000 tonnes each
Each country’s share has been determined by the SAARC Food Bank Board

NEW DELHI: India has pledged to contribute 153,200 tonnes of foodgrains to set up a Food Bank with an initial capacity of about 243,000 tonnes to meet the emergency food demands of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries.

Pakistan and Bangladesh have agreed to contribute 40,000 tonnes each, while Nepal and Sri Lanka will provide 4,000 tonnes each followed by Afghanistan (1,420 tonnes), Maldives (200 tonnes) and Bhutan (180 tonnes).

The Food Bank, proposed at the Colombo Summit of the SAARC meet in August, was ratified at an Extraordinary Meeting of Agriculture Ministers of the region here on last Friday.

Each country’s share has been determined by the SAARC Food Bank Board, based on production capacity, per capita consumption and availability. However, whether a country contributes rice or wheat would depend upon availability.

“We have formalised the process for operationalisation of the Food Bank,” Union Agriculture Minister and Chairman of the New Delhi meet Sharad Pawar told journalists here.

The capacity of the bank may be scaled up later depending on the situation.

It will be operationalised by the end of December this year.

The foodgrains would be stored in border areas of the member countries. For India, the Food Corporation of India would be in charge of the SAARC stocks.

The Board would work out the mode of pricing for distributing foodgrains in case of emergency but it is understood that the price would be lower than international price. The Board has proposed that the quoted Freight on Board (FoB) price of foodgrains on the date of request be the benchmark for negotiation with the requesting state. An emergency would include failure of crop from floods, drought or pests and disease.

The SAARC nations ruled out forming a rice cartel to have more bargaining power in the world trade. “About 40 per cent of the world’s poor live in our part of the world. Forming a cartel does not suit our purpose,” Mr Pawar said.

He told the meeting that the financial meltdown was expected to further fuel new problems for South Asian countries for which SAARC nations needed to prepare themselves jointly.

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