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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

‘Strengthen PDS instead of promoting cash transfers’-V Sridhar

-The Hindu


Protect interests of farmers while safeguarding ecology, he says

Kochi: Agriculture has become a "legal responsibility" of the state following the enactment of the Food Security Act, eminent agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan said on Thursday.

Delivering the inaugural address at the Tenth Anniversary conference of the Foundation of Agrarian Studies here, Prof. Swaminathan said, "Right to Food can be implemented only with home-grown food."

Observing that public procurement of coarse cereals was necessary because they were "nutritionally rich and climate-smart," Prof. Swaminathan said, "Only if there is procurement, will there be production." Calling for strengthening the public distribution system and not diluting it by offering cash transfers as an alternative, he said, "There are dangerous implications of substituting food for money."

Referring to the recent controversy over the Western Ghats, Prof. Swaminathan sought a "Do Ecology" approach towards environmental challenges rather than a "Don't, don't, don't approach." The increase in incidents of conflict between wildlife and the humans called for a "win-win approach" that balanced the interests of farmers with the need to protect the environment.

Presenting a paper at the conference, South African Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Solomon Lechesa Tsenoli said the "land question remains critical" even two decades after the exit of the apartheid regime.

Gregory Wilpert observed that the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had initiated land reforms as part of his Bolivarian Revolution. "The benefits of the reforms are not merely confined to the more equitable distribution of land but also include a decline in rural poverty," he pointed out.