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Interviews | Dr MS Swaminathan, NAC member and the father of India's Green Revolution interviewed by Rupashree Nanda

Dr MS Swaminathan, NAC member and the father of India's Green Revolution interviewed by Rupashree Nanda

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published Published on Dec 6, 2010   modified Modified on Dec 6, 2010

Dr MS Swaminathan, NAC member and the father of India's green revolution talks to Rupashree Nanda on the food security legislation, the neglect in creating storage infrastructure and ideas like outsourcing food security issues.

Rupashree Nanda: The main reason for the NAC climb down from the promised universal PDS to targeted PDS was the stated non - availability of foodgrains. Would you agree to that argument? Isn't there is not enough grain to promise all citizens?

Dr MS Swaminathan: Food grain will not be the problem. If you can add, just as the NAC has advised, jowar, ragi, barjra, madua, whatever local grains also, easily about 10 million tonnes of those can be bought. 50 to 60 million tones of rice or wheat can be bought provided the government has the right approach. I think it depends on our policy. Farmers will produce more if the consumption capacity in the country increases. On the other hand, in the case of pulses, there is an MSP but it is not implemented. It is also not implemented for Ragi, Bajra, Jowar. That is why areas under their cultivation is coming down. Maize has gone up because of the poultry industry. We do not use minor millets like jowar bajra ragi even in the midday meal scheme. Now it is a great opportunity for us to enlarge our food basket and look at grains which are nutritious. Unfortunately the British called these coarse cereals and created a caste system. They are more nutritious than wheat and rice. Universal pds can be done. Grains will not be a problem. The only problem is should we have the whole country at very highly subsidized food, Rs 3 a kilo for rice, Rs 2 a kilo for wheat, and Re 1 a kilo for millets.

Rupashree Nanda: The government, that is the food ministry, the planning commission have advocated what is called as minimalistic entitlement under the right to food. The government is pushing for cash transfers, wants to keep its liability low, raise the spectre of non availability of foodgrains during droughts but that is the time that people need it the most. Do you feel that the government is lacking political will?

Dr MS Swaminathan: I will reserve my judgement until the contours of the new food security act comes out. If that is very much watered down, then I will agree that there is no political will to eradicate hunger. You see, we have the unenviable reputation of being home to the largest number of hungry people in the world. 48 per cent of the children , and 40 per cent of women are malnourished. Hunger index, human dev index, all show us in a very bad light. What is the use? I believe in what JRD had said once...I don't want India to be a super power, I want India to be a happy country. The first among the hierarchical needs of a human being is food. You can do without a lot of things but food is very important. If the government gets cold feet and is unable to come forward with an act which can achieve our purpose (that is a hunger free India) which incidentally, Mahatma Gandhi had said, should be the first priority of independent India then I will say that there is no political will and that there should be some other government that has a political will.

Rupashree Nanda: The Planning Commission and Finance ministry just did not make adequate investments in the country's food storage systems. They knew knew of the shortage in storage capacity, that cover and plinth was inadequate and yet ... Just 149 crores in the last five year plan, that is 23 crores more than the 10th plan. Don't you think this was both irresponsible and shortsighted?

Dr MS Swaminathan: The neglect of investment and attention to the safe storage of grains we have purchased in my view is a criminal act whoever is responsible for it. We have enough money for the Common Wealth Games. If we had invested that amount of money in storage we would not be in this predicament. When we were leading a ship-to-mouth existence in the 1950s and mid -60s, when a ship had to come to feed our people, PL 480 wheat and all, we put up excellent storage in our ports. In fact, all our good storage were in the ports. But when we started growing in Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, the heartland of the green revolution, we never made an investment in post harvest technology infrastructure. This is a very deep shortsightedness on the part of those who are responsible for it. There should be a national grid of grain storages. I am tired of saying we need at fifty locations in the country, ultra modern storage houses of one million tonne each so that fifty million tonnes are spread across the country. But they have not done it. They are saying public - private partnerships ... some new terms are invented. But if the government is to fulfill its obligation under the food security act they should spend money on storage.

Rupashree Nanda: A lot of people feel that the open ended procurement policy of the government should stop now. Business papers, FICCI, Mckinsey are all saying that the government should outsource procurement, storage and distribution to the private sector. How would you respond to that?

Dr MS Swaminathan: Handing over food security issues like purchase , storage to private sector, is a recipe for national disaster. It will lead to chaos, it will lead to food riots, it will be the greatest harm done to the people of the country. You can't abdicate the primary responsibility of feeding the people. The private sector has no obligation at all to feed anybody. I think their only interest will be making money. I think it is a wrong policy. I think it is a dangerous policy. It is a socially dangerous policy. .

Rupashree Nanda: As recently as June this year, the FCI has written to the food secretary quoting from business papers which call for curtailing procurement by the governmnet. The CMD says that if there is a change in government's procurement policy the additional space created may not be used!

Dr MS Swaminathan: The food security act should clearly say that it is the government's fundamental responsibility to procure and store the foodgrain carefully. If this is not done, food security act will be just a dream.It will be a disaster. That is why some of them want to give money instead of food. That is again wrong policy. Because of the double advantage from buying from farmers at reasonable price that is the only way the farmers will produce more. I have often said that importing food where 70 per cent of people depend on agriculture is importing unemployment. But some believe we should import from where it is produced economically. Those who keep this sentiment say we have lot of foreign exchange. Food security based on imported food by a country that is predominantly agricultural is just not feasible.

Rupashree Nanda: But if big private players like Cargill come in, won't farmers benefit?

Dr MS Swaminathan: Farmers will benefit where only 2 per cent are employed farming and 98 per cent are in the secondary and tertiary sector of the economy. It will not benefit in places where 65 per cent of people are in farming. We again and again forget that very small percentage, a maximum of 3 per cent are in farming in industrialized countries. Even in Australia hardly 3 per cent to 4 per cent are now in farming. In those places you need big companies, big engineering companies, big food companies. Where a majority of people are in farming , their interest will have to be taken care of and that will not be done by large companies. There might be exceptions I wont generalize, but there are no examples of them having helped. They have been dominating the whole of Africa what has happened there? Nothing has happened. What happened in Brazil where they were dominating until Mr Lula came in and started the zero hunger programme. The whole Amazonian forest was ruined. We must decide where public sector's responsibility lies, and where the private sector's responsibility and strength lies. Private sector's strength does not lie in social equity.

Rupashree Nanda: But many argue that excessive procurement is leading to a greater food subsidy bill.

Dr MS Swaminathan: About excessive procurement I will only say the government has the responsibilty to provide food to 1.2 billion people set to become 1.5 billion in another 30 years. We'll exceed China in population. How are you going to do this if the government is not at the commanding height of the food security system? If they themselves are going to be beggars to the private sector you cannot do it at all. Anyone who is saying that government should abdicate its resposnibilty of providing minimum food is doing a great harm, is doing a great harm to the country. If government will not procure, farmers will not produce. There is no point in saying that we should not procure more.

Rupashree Nanda: The FCI note to the Food Ministry has also quoted from a FICCI report and a Mc Kinsey report. Infact, one of them recommends outsourcing not just welfare schemes but also the national safety stock?

Dr MS Swaminathan: We can outsource our survival to private parties. I don't think it is in the interest of the private sector to make suggestions for their own personal profit, suggestions which will affect the fundamental requirement of a human being like food and drinking water, shelter

Rupashree Nanda: So you think it is a bad idea?

Dr MS Swaminathan: A very bad idea. Not only bad idea, it is recipe for a national disintegration.

 

IBN, 4 December, 2010, http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rupashreenanda/137/62108/ms-swaminathan-speaks-about-food-security.html


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