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Rising food prices kept 8 million Indians chained to poverty: UN report
-The Times of India

Rising food prices during 2010-11 may have pushed three million Bangladeshis into poverty, and kept eight million Indians from getting out of poverty bracket, finds a UN report released on Thursday. In Asia and Pacific region, food inflation pushed nearly four million people into poverty.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific ( ESCAP) report on regional cooperation for inclusive and sustainable development says food prices have gone up primarily due to pressure on a shrinking and neglected agriculture sector, while consumption has risen significantly.

It cites supply-side factors than demand as the key that drove food prices. Increasing cost of fertilizers, competition for arable land, water resource and high oil prices are all responsible for the spike. Commodity market speculation has also been a growing factor behind high and volatile commodity prices.

The report says that the rising food price, which contributed to food insecurity, adversely impacted household budgets. Recent estimates by UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that over 65% of the household income of poor across the world is spent on food. "In Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, for example, common response to food price rises have been to switch to less expensive food items, reduce savings to spend on food and sell assets to buy food," the report says.

Raising concern over the poor's access to food in the region, it says that children are the first to feel the impact of hunger. For instance, in Bangladesh and India, more than 40% children are undernourished. It explains that the root cause of hunger across the sub-region is not lack of food rather the socio-economic and social distribution is responsible for this evil.

Pointing out the serious flaw in food distribution, the report claims that at national level, "hungry population live side-by-side with people who have easy access to food."

Advocating a robust mechanism for food distribution, it says food insecurity disproportionately affects women, rural folks, migrant workers and tribals. "Children are more likely to be undernourished, but there is also a gender difference as girls far more likely to be hungry than boys," it adds.

Times View

The UN body's report is only underlining what should be obvious — the most anti-poor measure that any government can take is to allow inflation to go out of control. This is particularly true of food inflation, which hits the poor much worse than it hits those who are better off. When we try to judge reform measures — like allowing FDI in retail or curtailing the subsidy bill through better targeting and a more efficient delivery mechanism — this should be taken into account. If these indeed help keep prices in check, through cutting out the middleman in one case or reining in the fiscal deficit in the other, they can hardly be termed anti-poor as critics of the reforms are prone to do.