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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Concern for food security by Devinder Sharma


Despite growing threat to food security from global warming, India is busy acq-uiring fertile lands for industries and infrastructure.

Something terrible is happening to the weather. And it is happening right across our home. From the cold desert of Ladakh to the plains of Bihar and Jharkhand, extreme weather conditions have played havoc. In neighbouring Pakistan, unprecedented floods, and that too in the arid region of Sindh, have hit more than 14 million people. Latest estimates point to four million people rendered homeless.

For some strange reasons, rainfall received due to cloudburst in Leh on a single day was higher than the highest in Cherapunji. Normally, Leh has been known to receive precipitation in the form of snow only. Although rains had appeared in the Ladakh cold desert for some years now, such intense downpour defies scientific explanation. In Pakistan, what caused the floods was also a massive downpour, more than what it normally receives in a month.

If you think such weather fluctuations are only happening in India and Pakistan, you are mistaken. Severe drought and wildfires have been raging in Russia for almost a month now. A dense layer of dark cloud hangs over much of Russia. Not only in north-eastern India, parts of Africa and eastern United States are also reeling under a severe drought.

Seemingly disconnected, these extreme weather conditions are being increasingly linked to global warming. While the official machinery grapples to deal with the extent of damage, scientists are now trying to ascertain the causal reasons. Many believe that such drastic weather aberrations are because of global warming, but the linkages are still not that clearly defined.

Whatever be the reasons, the devastation wrought by aberrant weather condition in several parts of the world has posed a bigger question about the implications it has for food security. Already, Russia and parts of Africa have lost wheat crop in millions of acres. In view of the loss in harvest, Russia has already banned wheat export. Pakistan is also contemplating food imports to tide over the shortages emanating from the deluge.

In the past too, Australia and Canada have had low wheat harvests necessitating large cuts in grain exports. Again, wheat harvest in both these countries had been impacted by distortions in the usual climate pattern thereby pushing up global food prices. This only goes to show how precarious and at the same time crucial it is for every country to maintain food self-sufficiency.

As had been witnessed in 2007-08, when food prices shot up globally, resulting in food riots in 37 countries, even countries which had foreign exchange reserves to fall back upon found there was no surplus food available in the global markets. While this has necessitated the scramble to scout for fertile land in other countries for crop cultivation and shipping the food back, domestic economic policies are being designed to drive out farmers from agriculture. I don’t see the logic of farmland grab in foreign countries when agriculture back home is sacrificed for the sake of industry.

Villages will disappear

Unmindful of the growing threat to food security from resulting global warming, India too is busy acquiring good fertile lands for industrial purposes, real estate and infrastructure. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, 26,000 villages will disappear when all expressway projects are completed. Since 1980, more than 9.8 lakh hectares of tribal land in the country has been diverted for industrial projects. In addition, over 1.5 lakh hectares of land is to be acquired only for Special Economic Zones.

Land acquisition is on a fast track. Not realising that land is essential for producing food for a population as huge as that of India. It has to be understood that dependence on imported food to meet the food security challenges is no longer a sustainable option. Global warming has already hit foodgrain production internationally, and should make countries to rethink food policies, to ensure that more food is produced within the country.

Unfortunately, policy makers and planners are not willing to look beyond climate change. The resulting impact on food and livelihood security is not forcing the governments to redefine the model of growth economics. The bigger tragedy is that all weather extremes are now being very conveniently blamed on climate change. Somehow an impression is being given that climate change is the act of god, and therefore beyond human role. Climate change has become the scapegoat for all ills, most of it the outcome of wrong economic policies.

This mindset is more destructive than the actual devastation caused by greenhouse gases. Intensive farming across globe, aided by commodity trading and futures, is one major reason for the crop cycles going bust. Not drawing any lessons from the debacle of intensive chemical farming systems, governments are busy laying the foundation for the 2nd Green revolution, which will acerbate the climate as well the sustainability crisis.

What is therefore urgent is to raise public opinion against government policies that add onto global warming. What happened in Leh or in Sindh in Pakistan can happen elsewhere too. More than blaming the weather gods, it is time governments revisit economic policies that are responsible for the extreme weather fluctuations. These are not freak events. These devastating weather disruptions are man made. It is time we made the necessary corrections before inclement weather strikes us.