Poverty of Policy Aid Food Insecurity

A Press Trust of India(PTI) report from Mumbai, carried by Business Line(09.05.10) said that lack of adequate or proper storage facilities is resulting in rotting of food grains. Quoting the Union Agriculture and Food Minister Mrs.Sharad Pawar, the report observed: “The condition of the go-downs in the country is not good and that is resulting in the rotting of good grains. The report further added that the country wastes Rs.58,000 crores worth of food items every year due to lack of or poor storage facilities.”

There is no other country that presents a more shameful paradox of plenty—grains rotting in the open while millions live in hunger. “India is home to the world’s largest food insecure population, with more than 200 million people who are hungry,” says the India State Hunger Index(ISHI) 2009, prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The ISHI measures hunger on three leading indicators and combines them into one index. The three indicators are: prevalence of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient. The ISHI found that 12 States fell in the ‘alarming’ category and one State—Madhya Pradesh—fell in the ‘extremely alarming’ category. Four States—Punjab, Kerala, Hariyana and Assam—are in the serious category.

The report identifies that strong economic growth does not necessarily translate into lower hunger levels. Even States with high rates of economic growth in recent years, such as Gujarat, Chattisgarh and Maharashtra have high levels of hunger, while States with relatively slower economic growth, such as Punjab, achieved a lower hunger level.

“Hunger and malnutrition are often rooted in poverty. Part of the solution rests with increasing investments in agriculture and poverty reduction programmes,” says Mr.G.K.Nair, a former Union Agriculture and Food Ministry official, who had served in central government projects in Orissa, Mekhalaya and Andamans.

Several experts have pointed out that the underlying problem of Indian agriculture that threatens food insecurity is extremely low productivity. A study by the M.S.Swaminathan Reseach Foundation(MSSRF) revealed that in the case of rice, it is only a sixth of what has been achieved elsewhere. The situation is no different in the case of other crops. The system of monitoring soil fertility and maintaining it is flawed and needs urgent attention.

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Food Policy analyst Mr.Devinder Sharma in his Decan Herald(21.04.10) article writes: ”There is no reason why in the 6,00,000 villages of the country, which produce food for the country, people should be living in hunger. These villages have to be made hunger-free by adopting a community-based localized food-grain bank scheme. Such traditional system exist in several parts of the country and there is an immediate need for its revival.”

Experts and activists argue that the persistence of widespread poverty and hunger is the cumulative out-come of the public policies that produce and reproduce improvishment; of failures to invest in agriculture, especially in poorer regions of India and for rain-fed and small farmers.

Allegations of starvation deaths are typically met with official denials and the blaming of the victims. Public servants believe mistakenly that death from consuming no food whatsoever is the only “proof” of starvation. But starvation is a condition of not just the dead but the living, and people who have lived with prolonged food denials mostly succumb not directly to starvation, but to health condition which they would have easily survived had they been adequately nourished.

For large number of poor people who live routinely and precariously at the edge of survival, each day comes afresh with the danger of one push that will send them hurtling over the precipice. This may come from an external emergency, like a natural disaster, epidemic or riot, but even from local crises; a sickness in the family, a sudden untimely death of a bread winner or a brush with the law.

Independent studies and assessments have highlighted that government programmes are woefully inadequate to address wide-spread poverty and destitution. Presenting incontrovertible evidence, The Hindu’s Rural Affairs Editor, Mr.P.Sainath, in a series of brilliant articles captured the plight of the people and that it is the result of a profound collapse of governance.

Inagurating the 92^nd Conference of the Indian Economic Association(IEA) at Bubaneswar, last year, Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh observed: “To achieve our objective of inclusive growth, we need to pay much greater attention to the education, health care, and rural development, focusing on the needs of the poor—the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other minorities.” Dr.Singh conceded that poverty was not declining fast enough. He urged IEA to respond to these challenges.

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Report on the State of Food Insecurity in Rural India, published by the M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation said in India, given the regionally adverse concentration of food grain production, the food security could be ensured only through improved universal PDS with adequate accessibility to the poor. Tracing the origins of the PDS to the years of scarcity in the 1950s and the 60s as a part of rationing, the report finds that there was a healthy spread of universal PDS in the 80s. But in the 90s there was a set back. The Targeted PDS was introduced osten- sibyl to reduce the cost of food subsidy, to check leakages and to prevent the diversion of grain. None of these objectives achieved effectively. Worse, it resulted in high cost due to the holding of more stocks and the exclusion of many poor house-holds.

Media reports suggest that in spite of having the world’s largest population of hungry, the good subsidy bill is proposed to be pruned, from Rs.56,000 crores for 2010-11 to Rs.28,000 crore under the proposed National Food Security Bill.

System of identifying India’s poor are seriously flowed and many studies show that they leave out many of our most improvised people. The Suresh Tendulkar Committee has demarcated 37 per cent of the population to be living in poverty. Earlier Arjun Sengupta Committee had concluded that 77 per cent of the population is able to spend not more than rs.20 a day. Justice D.P.Wadhva Committee has recommended that any one earning less than Rs.100 a day should be considered as living below poverty line.

In the rural centres and the food deficit areas, instead of reducing the number of beneficiaries, a universal public distribution system is required experts feel. The existing PDS system has to be overhauled and this requires a strong political will. Also, there is a dire need to involve social and non-governmenal organizations in food distraction. At the same time, nothing can succeed if we do not ensure safe drinking water and sanitation to the part of the hunger and poverty mitigation programmes.

It is often argued that the government cannot foot the bill for feeding each and every Indian. This is not true. In the budget 2010, Finance Minister Mr.Prpanab Mukherjee has announced a ‘revenue foregone’ of Rs.5 lakh crore, which means the sales, excise and other tax concessions plus income tax exemption for the industry and business. The annual budget excise is for roughly Rs.11 lakh crores. This means, the government is doling out massive subsidies to the industry.

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The thrust of the Swaminathan Research Foundation Report on the State of Food Insecurity is that over the years, especially since the advent of the economic reforms, issues related to food and nutritional insecurity have been getting less and less priority at the policy level. The euphoria over food grain self-sufficiency, combined with policy shift towards structural adjustments, resulted in decrease in public investment in areas such as agricultural infrastructure, agricultural research and development of right technology. This in turn affected growth of productivity especially on small farms, with a far-reaching impact on food-grain availability in the future. In the name of fiscal constraint, food procurement, storage and distribution needs are sought to be assessed in terms of costs, leaving more room for market players in the food regime, which is having its own toll in the form high food prices.

The National Family Health Survey(2006) showed that the child under-nutrition rate in India is 46 per cent. This figure is almost double that of Sub-Saharan Africa, which is economically poorer than India. In the latest Global Hunger Index, India ranks 66^th among the 88 countries surveyed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. It comes below Sudan, Nigeria and Cameron and slightly above Bangladesh. There has been virtually no change in India’s ranking in the U.N. Human Development Report between 2000 and 2007-08, indicating that there has been no marked gain in terms of the quality of life for the average citizen.

For the Central government’s inclusive growth agenda to make a difference to the urban poor, interventions that insulate the rural poor from the multiple vulnerabilities of rural living are critical. In the rural areas, the incidence of poverty is higher among workers in the informal sector. While the government’s proposal to extend the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to more areas, with modifications, is welcome to the extent that it will provide job opportunities and incomes to the poor, measures that prevent a relapse into poverty are also required. More important is to put in place policies than ensure access to affordable healthcare, expenses on which are a major cause for impoverishment of the vulnerable sections. A social security system for all unorganized workers, therefore, is a priority. The larger aim of poverty reduction programmes should be to ensure that the vulnerable are not impoverished because of the pressures of rural living.

Mari-time Piracy An Emerging Threat

Piracy continues to be a serious risk for shipping companies, sailors, cargo owners, and insurers. According to the weekly report of the International Maritime Bureau(IMB) in London, pirate attacks occur on the world's oceans almost daily.

Modern day pirates are armed with state-of the -art weapons and have been given good training. Experts suspect that they are also supported and trained by terrorist organisations. They comb coastal waters in high-speed boats. Surprise is the most important element in their raids.

They operate both in ports and on the open sea. In many cases, they come abroad disguised as coastguards or harbour police. The dividing line between piracy and terrorism is becoming blurred and the danger of terror at sea is growing too.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases in which a ship is hijacked and ransom demanded for the vessel and/or the crew. The Somali coast is considered a particularly dangerous area in this respect. Pirates also attack private yachts off the usual commercial shipping routes.

The recent downturn in the global economy and the increase of Third World poverty have contributed to the rise in piracy, according to John Burnett, author of the recently published “Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas.”

Political terror also plays a role in hot spots like Somalia and Sri Lanka. What ever the motivation, pirates prowl waters all around the world.

“Ships are sitting ducks at sea. It’s very difficult to stop pirates these days. Ships and their crews are not equipped to defend themselves,” says an Indian Navy pilot who participated in action, in that area.

The International Maritime Bureau runs the piracy Reporting Center, worldwide monitoring agency in Kula Lampur, Malaysia, and issues an annual report “Piracy and Armed Robber Against Ships.” Its web site tracks piracy week by week throughout the year at weekly Piracy Report.

Munich Re the international re-insurer has been observing the development of this risk on the world's oceans for a long time and has now published a report on the subject(www.munich-re.com). This report analyses the dangers emanating from piracy and marine terrorism and explains the legal position at national and international levels. It highlights underwriting aspect and describes ways of minimising the risk.

The hijacking of the supertanker Sirius Star off the coast of Somalia had triggered a veritable media frenzy. The frequency and the scale of recent acts if piracy are a real cause of concern says Dieter Berg, head of Munich Re's Marine Division.

Munich Re views current events with growing concern. Even if piracy only accounts for a very small portion of marine insurance business, the potential perils are enormous. When a ship is attacked, the hijackers frequently just lock the crew in the hold and leave them to their fate. If the "rudderless" ship then collids with a tanker, losses could be of enormous proportions.

The safe transportation of goods across water is a vital economic factor in these days of increasing globalisation , with 90% of all goods worldwide transported by ship.

Piracy usually occurs in areas without effective government control or where corruption is rife. There are estimated to be over a thousand pirates operating off the Somali coast.

While private yachts and boats can travel in convoys to avoid notorious pirate areas, commercial shipping has no simple safeguards against pirates. Tight time schedules, unchanging shipping routes and the scale of some vessels—like tge skyscraper-long oil tankers that are hard to guard against intruders—make it tough to maintain security on the high seas.

About 48,000 vessels pass through these waters each year. The terrorists who lie in wait, picking off yachts, freighters and fully laden tankers, are very different from the old pirate image. Armed with missiles and rockets, they have established a heaven in northern Somalia, and send out speedboats to seize ships and crews for ransom. The attacks are often coordinated from a captured vessel disguised to look harmless.

Keeping statistical records of piracy is very difficult. Shipping companies report only a fraction of the actual cases for fear of their ships being impounded for a long periods or because they simply do not want to pay the resultant higher insurance premium. Reliable figures on the economic losses involved are therefore very hard to come by. The IBM, puts losses from piracy in 2008 alone at some 13 bn Euro.

Piracy off the cost of Somalia has led to a “shocking” hike in shipping insurance premium of at least 30 per cent.

Preventive measures and effective pursuit of the pirates by governments and authorities will only be possible once a clear legal basis is in place. There is clearly an urgent need for action in this respect. The success in combating piracy in the Malacca Straits is testimony to the effectiveness of close cooperation between the coastal states, their police forces and the armed services.

Merchant ships plying the waters off Somalia should increase their vigilance in the light of an increase in pirate attacks according to West Asia based media reports quoting US Navy officials.

As Somalia, a country without a functioning government for the past 17 years, sinks ever deeper into poverty, violence and lawlessness, the attacks have grown in number and daring, becoming a main source of income for the gangs terrorizing the country.

The UN Security Council has authorized warships to enter Somali water to combat piracy, and recently, European Ministers, in response to calls by France and Spain, agreed to set up a unit to coordinate the fight against this terrorism at sea.

IMB reported an “unprecedented rise” in maritime hijacking in 2009, when figures surpassed all previous records. The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre started tracking piracy data in 1992.

So far, 294 attacks, including close to 34 successful hijackings of vessels, were reported in 2009 according to web site information of Piracy Reporting Center. The total number of incidents reported so far has surpassed the total number reported in 2008. A total of 559 hostages have been taken in these hijackings. The lion’s share of hijackings have taken place off the coast of Somalia, either in the Gulf of Aden or off the country’s east coast in the Indian Ocean.

IMB Director Potengal Mukundan is quoted as saying: ”The fact that last year’s figures have been surpassed three quarters of the way through 2009 shows that pirates, particularly off Somalia, still pose a significant threat to shipping.”

London news paper, Independent, recently, reported that Gulf banks are being used by organized pirate syndicates to launder millions of dollars taken as ransom from vessels hijacked off in the Gulf of Aden. Investigators hired by the shipping industry told the newspaper, around $ 80 million was paid out by shippers in 2008, much of which find its way to piracy ‘godfathers’ based in the Gulf and African countries such as Kenya.

Impact of Natural Disasters

A wave of natural disasters has struck a tragic chord globally. From the devastating floods in Philippines to the tsunami-hit South Pacific Islands, the disasters are a potent reminder of man's helplessness against nature.

The "strange" changes in typhoon patterns observed over recent years in Philippines confirm fears of the devastating impact of global warming, climate scientists warned. They point out that serious attention should be given to the factors responsible for a worsening climate situation. A strong global strategy to fight climate change, getting worse by the day because of merciless abuse of the environment is the need of the hour.

Floods, storms, droughts and other climate-related natural disasters drove 20 million people from their homes last year, nearly four times as many as were displaced by conflicts, a new U.N. report said recently. The study tried to quantify for the first time the number of people forced to flee their homes because of climate change. Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of storms and otherwise altering weather patterns, so disasters are now "an extremely significant driver of forced displacement globally", it said.

The study said a total of 36 million people were driven from their homes by rapid onset of natural disasters in 2008. The report was compiled jointly by the U.N. office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre(IDMC), a body which normally tracks displacement caused by conflicts. In the Philippines, nearly two million people were forced from their homes by severe storms, China and Myanmar also saw large-scale displacements due to storms.

Last year, more than five million people were displaced by flooding in India, attributed in part to changes in the country's monsoon cycle. Asia accounted for over 90 per cent of disaster-related displacements last year, which the report said "may simply because Asia is the most disaster-prone region."

A World Bank study titled "Climate Volatility Deepens Poverty Vulnerability in Developing Countries" noted: "Extreme climate events influence poverty by affecting agricultural productivity and raising prices of staple foods that are important to poor households in developing countries. With the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events predicted to change in the future, informed policy design and analysis requires an understanding of which countries and groups are going to be most vulnerable to increasing poverty."

Writing in The Economic and Political Weekly(Aug.2009) E.Somanathan and Rohini Somanathan on "Climate Change :Challenges facing India's Poor" pointed out that "Rising temperature, changes in rainfall patterns, and an increased frequency of floods and droughts are likely to have serious effects on rural populations in the absence of policies that actively help these households adjust to their changing geography." Based on the survey data from villages affected by the Kosi flood of 2008, they revealed how households and governments are likely to respond to unexpected weather events. "The flood in Bihar rendered much of the land in the area uncultivable and resulted in large-scale unemployment. The state, while effective in providing immediate relief to flood victims, has done little to help the rural population adapt to their changed geography", they concluded.

Extreme climatic events carries a sinister message for policy-makers from around the world who are busy drafting the climate-change agreements for the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. The message is :Act now or face the fatal consequences. The series of natural disasters are part of a string of Nature's out-poring of wrath that are growing more frequent and severe due to the rapid raise in global temperature and the world's unwillingness to shift to sustainable development, the use of green technologies and an earnest commitment to curb runaway consumerism.

Nature's dire warnings should make the climate-change negotiators from rich and poor countries alike realize that they can no longer allow themselves to be trapped in the blame game. Time is running out. It is suicidal to keep shifting responsibilities or arguing about the wording. While constantly looking over one's shoulder for fear of losing an inch to their economic rivals. The latest string of natural disasters in this part of the world should also drive home another important message :while policy makers are at loggerheads, it is the ordinary people who lose lives and livelihood, paying the price for their leaders short-sightedness.

World Disasters Report 2009 observed :"The rising dangers of climate change require a response from governments equivalent to the one made to address the global financial crisis."