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Manmohan Singh
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The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has emphasised the governments commitment to the launching of a Second Green Revolution. The New Deal aimed at ensuring food and nutritional security of the people, would augment farm incomes and employment.
I do not claim to have any expert knowledge of the subjects of this area. However, my long association with public life, has given me some insights, which I thought, I would use this opportunity to share with you. Every morning I receive a large number of telephone calls. I received three telephone calls this morning, which I think, sum up the top priorities that we have in this country and I hope its true of South Asia as a whole: face in our quest for a life of dignity and self-respect for our people. A child asked me this morning What are you doing to save our tigers? India needs a strategy of development, which is economically efficient and environmentally sustainable. The second telephone call came from a young man who said What about employment? Everywhere I go, I am asked this question from young men and women who say, What are we going to do to provide gainful employment to our people? The third telephone call I received in the morning was with regard to biosafety. We have the immense possibility of biotechnology both in areas of health and areas of agricultural development a new beginning can be made. But there are also risks, there are question marks. There are worries about the side-effects of the new bio-technologies and I suggest to you that these three concerns are concerns which are widely shared by all countries in South Asia, in their quest for democratic and more just social and economic development. Experts have referred to the immense possibilities of mutual co-operation in South Asia. But so far we have not been able to utilise that vast, latent potential of our region and I sincerely hope that the future would indeed be different from the past.
In our country and our government in particular, we are very sincere that together with our neighbours, we should make a new beginning to deploy the enormous opportunities of converting people-to-people contact and exploiting the opportunities of economic and social co-operation that exist between the countries of South Asia. International organisations like IFPRI must strike roots in the regions where they work, engage in deeper and closer collaboration with regional partners, enabling a two-way interaction between the researchers and users of their research on augmenting farm incomes and alleviating poverty.
There is also a need to work closely with the local researchers and collaborate with local institutions. India fortunately has a rich tradition of policy research and there is a considerable diversity of institutions engaged in policies. I believe that research should also be sensitive to local needs and aspirations. Our government has been voted to power on the wave of agrarian distress, caused partly by the failure of the market and partly by the failure of the state. We have committed ourselves to build a New Deal for rural India. What does this New Deal entail? It is intended to reverse the decline in the investment in agriculture. In fact, stepping up of investment in agriculture, including agricultural research happens to be one of our key priorities.
We need to ensure the credit inflow to farmers, to increase public investment in irrigation and wasteland development, to increase funds for agricultural research and extension, to create a single market for agricultural produce, to increase investment in rural healthcare, education, rural electrification, rural roads and commodities, and the future markets. An important dimension of this New Deal is aimed at ensuring food and nutritional security of the people, while at the same time, augmenting farm incomes and employment will be the launching of a Second Green Revolution.
Our government will be launching a National Horticulture Mission that is aimed, in part, at stimulating this Second Green Revolution, in a range of new crops and commodities.
And here, I would like to list some problems that we face. The First Green Revolution was not the byproduct of the work in the public sector. It has always been felt that research in agriculture related subjects is largely extravagancies. The Consultative Group on Indian Agricultural Research(CGIAR) came into existence as recognition of this extra baggage that goes with agricultural research. But in the last 10 or 15 years, technologicaladvances in areas like biotechnology are coming not from the public sector, but from the private sector in research and development initiatives. The challenge now is to encourage this creativity, this innovativeness and at the same time to ensure that new products and new processes will be affordable for the vast majority of farmers who live on the edges of subsistence. Even as we widen the scope of our policy concerns with respect to the agrarian economy, we must not forget that there remain the enduring challenges of our food economy that continue to demand our attention. It has been noted, for instance, that demand for foodgrains has been decelerating in India in the recent years, despite stability in food prices and persistence of low nutritional standards among the poor. What is puzzling is the fact that statistical evidence does not point towards any deterioration in the health indicators. Rather, there is an improvement in human development indicators pertaining to the health status of the people. How do we explain this puzzle?
There is the other puzzle that the consumption of more expensive cereals has gone up even among poorer households, while the demand for the so-called inferior cereals has stagnated. What are the health and nutritional implications of this food preference in the long run? We need a better monitoring of food availability and access situation in the country and in South Asia as a whole. We also need to understand what exactly are the food and nutritional security challenges in different parts of the country as vast, diverse and complex as India is. I am told the Planning Commission is considering setting up a Food and Nutrition Security Watch to function as a think tank on food and nutrition security issues as well as a programme-reviewingagency. I hope this will help to advance our understanding of the underlying causes of malnutrition and also outline the strategies on how to deal with it.
In many ways the challenge of dealing with food and nutritional security is the responsibility of our states in the federal system. However, the Central Government cannot remain indifferent to the needs of people. The Centre is actively engaged in supporting schemes and programmes for promoting agricultural production. It is also funding programmes aimed at enhancing the food security of the people, including the National Food for Work Programme. There are targeted programmes for children, for pregnant and nursing mothers and for weaker sections of society. Our government has strengthened the Mid-Day Meal scheme and the Antyodaya Anna Yojana.
All told, we are devoting as much as Rs. 400 billion to these social programmes. The real challenge, however, is one of implementation and of the delivery of these services. Our government would like to emphasiseoutcomes and not merely focus on outlays. The effectiveness of spending must improve both in terms of administrative efficiency and the impact on target groups. We cannot allow a situation to persist in this country where food surpluses and accumulating food stocks co-exist with starvation deaths and persistent malnutrition. The real challenge here is one of delivery and of reforming the administrative systems. India can banish hunger and malnutrition. It is entirely doable.
I hope our political and administrative leaderships at all levels will rise to this challenge. It is such preparation that can play a very important role in sharpening the scope of awareness of the challenges that lie ahead and the instrumentalities that can be effectively used to deal with those challenges. There is much that local governments can do to address this challenge. They must be more actively engaged in monitoring both availability and access to food at the local level and play an active role in improving the food security of the people. Our government is strongly committed to empowering the Panchayati Raj institutions and NGOs in meeting this challenge at the grassroots.
The question of food and livelihood security at the local and national levels has acquired a new global dimension with the increasing liberalisation of trade in agriculture and the globalisation of both, research and of marketing of inputs. National boundaries do not matter any longer. How can national and local governments deal with the challenge of food and nutritional security in a globalised market? What are the challenges that globalisation poses to the food security of a people? What can we do to make globalisation a truly win-win game? There are both opportunities as well as risks.
How can international agencies help devise mechanisms of social safety nets? This ultimately is also an important agenda for research in the years to come. In what ways will the globalisation and the liberalisation of trade impinge upon our traditional knowledge? It is easy to talk about the rationality of open markets, but one must also be alive to the rationality of social practices. Agriculture is not just a business in our country, for millions of Indians it still remains a way of life. How can we preserve this cherished way of life of so many, and yet be part of the emerging processes of globalisation?
Such are the challenges that policy-makers face and researchers must be alive to them. The economists assumption of ceteris paribus is not a luxury available to politicians. In the real world, other things are rarely, if ever, equal as we push for change. There is today a new challenge that governments have to deal with in formulating policy with regard to the food economy. This is the emergence of the private sector, both in research and infrastructure. Our erstwhile model of fully publicly funded research and development in agriculture and largely publicly funded investment in rural infrastructure is being replaced by increasing private participation.
Private investment in biotechnology, in developing and marketing seeds, in power, irrigation and other rural infrastructure, and in agricultural research, is increasing. How do we promote greater public-private partnership in the context of managing creative evolution? How do we create a stake for the private sector in the welfare of the marginalised? How do we serve public interest while creating incentives for private investment? These are challenges for policy-makers in agriculture. South Asia remains far behind its potential, both in terms of human development and in terms of agricultural and industrial production. I sincerely hope that we can all work together to improve the quality of life and the living standards of the people
of South Asia.
Note: This article is based on the text of the Prime Ministers speech at the Launch of Indian Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi Centre in April.
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