The world food system today is far too complex for common sense to understand. It raises many questions: If safe, nutritious food is a fundamental right, why are one billion people living with hunger? Why do farmers and farm workers remain starved/half-starved? Why are people in food-exporting countries living with hunger? If the value of annual global exports in agriculture products is in billions, why are agricultural labourers and farmers...

The central government claims that allowing foreign direct investment into India’s retail sector will benefit small farmers, expand employment and lower food inflation. What has been the experience in India with organised retail so far and what has been the global experience with FDI? Sukhpal Singh (sukhpal@iegindia.org) is currently at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. After being under relentless attack for a week, the United Progressiv Alliance government was forced to...

Indian traders reject FDI in multi-brand retail and emphasise the need for a policy to regulate the labour-intensive sector. TRADERS across the country responded angrily to the Union Cabinet's decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade, disproving the arguments of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the assessment of corporate India, which had tried hard to make it appear that traders and...

Global experience in retail trading by MNCs does not tally with the presumptions on which the UPA government's FDI policy is based. IN the course of the debate on the need to permit foreign direct investment in retail in India, two arguments have been advanced often. The first argument is that large organised retail is good for not just consumers, who would benefit from lower prices owing to cost efficiencies...

Policymakers have repeatedly said that commodity futures help farmers hedge their risks. But data from Forward Markets Commission (FMC), the regulator for the business worth Rs 106 lakh crore during April-October, paints a different picture. The share of agricultural trade is just a tad over 10% and within this, Food products such as soya oil and chana accounted for less than 7% of the total value. Of course, the government itself...