Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi has made a twice visits to Nepal. During his visit, he addressed issues ranging from energy to agriculture. Nepal being an agrarian society, it appears appropriate to inquire Modi about the decisive steps of his government regarding the implementation of National Food Security Act 2013. National Food security Act guarantees rice, wheat, and coarse cereals per month per person at a fixed price of rupees 3, rupees 2 and rupees 1 respectively. How is the Modi government planning to supply food at such low prices to rural India without compromising on quality?
Indian population specifically below poverty line (BPL) is watching the government's moves on this issue. The Indian government's interest lies in Ganga River, the major water body of Northern India, but does it also consider proper management of water resources to produce large amount of food production? Supplying food grains at such cheap prices to a large population could violate the norms of quality food. Most importantly, will the food production be organic or inorganic? Keeping aside marginalized farmers, what about the heavy subsidy of fertilizers to large-scale farmers? What about the sustainability of food supply system?
This article attempts to focus on these questions through policy analysis of India’s ‘National Food Security Act 2013’ from the perspective of food security dimensions and equally urges to know the Modi Government’s implementation steps of the act. The article provides an insight to Nepalese policy maker to implement the The Right to Food and Food Sovereignty Act, 2075 (2018), until we watch how the new constitution of Federal Democratic Republic Nepal gets implemented at three levels. On the other hand, Nepal in its constitution has a legal provision on Right to Food and Food Sovereignty.
Nepal is considered as agrarian economy where fragmented plots of lands are cultivated by marginal land holders particularly in entire three ecological regions. The economy is merely based on natural resources in which agricultural land is the major determinant of economic activities. Poverty is rampant in rural areas compared to urban areas out of which larger population being small land holders are dependent in agriculture for their livelihood. In Nepal majority of the population highly depend on agriculture on which the allocated budget for agriculture and food security does not suffice the contribution. The farming system still is in subsistence level and poor infrastructures, weak institutional mechanism, inadequate technical support restricts agricultural growth towards commercialization and supply chain development in Nepal. Even though, we have Right to Food mentioned in the constitution, nearest neighbor India is well ahead in creating legal entitlements of food through the food security act 2013.
In September 2013, Indian parliament passed the “The National Food Security Bill 2013” tabled by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by Indian National Congress, resulting in “National Food Security Act, 2013” (NFSA). The National food security Bill 2013 describes the intention of the Bill as, ‘to provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity and quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto’ (NFSB, 2013).
It is applicable across India with different intensity to different states. The urgent need to table the bill was felt after the Global Hunger Index 2012 positioned India with 21 percent of its population as undernourished, over 43.5 percent of children below five as underweight and malnutrition rates much worse than Sub Saharan Africa. However, Nepal was positioned in 60th position which escalated from 54th in 2011. In addition, poor infrastructural facilities for storage, transportation and distribution have resulted in massive food spoilage, which stands at 30-40 percent of the total output. On the other hand, the total cost for the implementation of this Act amounts to US$ 20 billion.
Prominent economist Ashok Gulati estimates that the Act aims to cover 67 percent of India's 1.2 billion people. This covers 75 percent of the rural households and 50 percent of urban areas. This Act has shifted the paradigm of welfare approach of the government to the rights-based approach which ensures that BPL households have legalized entitlements to certain amount of wheat and rice at subsidized rates. The table below extracted from National Food Security Bill 2011 as introduced in Lok Sabha illustrates the right to receive food grains at subsidized prices.
Figure 1 Right to receive food grains at subsidized prices
Public Distribution System and Pressure on Economy
Interestingly, India plans to make the public food distribution unique and introduces the largest-ever scheme to tackle malnutrition, undernourishment and food insecurity in the country. As Amartya Sen highlights in his book “Development as Freedom”, the case of Bengal famine was due to faulty public distribution system (PDS). In order to avoid these problems, the coordination among the concerned ministries seems unavoidable to implement the Act. The act has coverage to 67 percent of the total population. According to Dr Abhijit Sen, since bogus ration cards is a problem BPL household should be recorded well to make the Act successful.
Another challenge relates to natural resources. The government plans to procure at least 55-62 million tons of food grains. However, 60 percent of India’s farmland is dependent upon monsoon rains. Drought/extreme weather reduces food production, which leads to higher import of food grains. To increase the food production, pressure on natural resource like water and land will be at its utmost. Given the level of arsenic water in the Indo-Gangetic plains and the main food production hub of the country, managing the excessive use of fertilizer to procure huge amount of grains will be another tough task. Producing around 60 million tons of food grains shall be impossible without using chemical fertilizers. Also, asymmetric information of the farmers regarding the market prices and other factors like inaccessibility of Government subsidies plays a vital role in de-motivating them to produce. This will automatically put pressure on the fiscal economy and raise food prices. This contradicts the food security scheme of distributing food grains in the subsidized rates. Again, the quality of rice and wheat that will be supplied at the low prices to BPL households comes into question. The minimum support prices for farmers must be increased in order to procure rice, wheat in INR 3 and 2 respectively.
The diagrammatic representation of pressure on fiscal economy is illustrated by the figure 2 below.
Figure 2: Diagrammatic representation of Pressure on Fiscal Economy by NFSA 2013
The distribution of food grains is not the end; it comes with stocking, procurement which will again increase the operation expenditure. This does not allow food security schemes to distribute food grains at low prices. In addition, the need to keep raising the minimum support price to farmers for safety and protection is another issue to be dealt with. Special evaluation study on #ADB social protection strategy has concluded that instead of price policy, income policy works better. The study cites the classic example of Bolsa Familia from Brazil where conditional cash transfer program has lifted more than 20 million Brazilians from acute poverty to meet the equity front of food distribution.
Climatic changes and other problems known through farmer’s experiences and scientific evidence, monsoon-led economy and government schemes should be planned sensibly to implement the Act at the ground level. Also injecting US$21 billion inside the economy has a larger impact in the overall economy which also affects the other financial sectors.
All in all, quality aspects of rice, wheat and coarse cereals would still be questionable. The food availability aspect of food security explains appropriate quality food. However, quality of food priced one rupee needs to be reflected upon. To have safety nets and to uplift population from poverty line, food security Act is trying to ensure that poor and marginalized farmers would not be hit by food price inflation. However, chances of re-falling into the poverty trap is higher until government provides food subsidy. Still, there will be an important question – until when is it appropriate to provide the subsidy?
Figure 3 Mid-Day
Meal Menu of Primary School in the Jeeraheda village of Rajasthan State (Photo ©
Sanjeev Poudel)
Multi sector pressure from Economist and Civil society organizations (CSOs) will certainly pull down the subsidy in future. Some policy changes by the Modi government shall also be observed in coming years. As UPA enacted the Bill on the popular election manifesto, other opposition parties are less likely to reduce subsidy in the fear of being tagged as ‘Anti Poor”.
To ensure that the right targeted group avails the legal entitlement of the food, the mechanism which has been successful in Brazil could be replicated in India through conditional cash transfer. However, cautions should be made while replicating the success stories from other countries as the socio-economic contexts and institutional arrangements of different countries vary. The scams and corruption often derails the main goal of the act. The national government also knows the fact that PDS is inefficient in many remote areas of India and that to strengthening the system is imperative. Hence, it is important not just to limit the act to legal entitlements but make it a success at grassroots level. It might be a ploy from the previous UPA government to put the successive government in their knees when they are not able to supply food to the poor people without compromising the quality. Nevertheless, in the forthcoming elections, the measurable indicators after successful implementation of the food security Act might decide the fate of the Modi government.
The Author wrote this piece in 2012 as a part of assignment which is still relevant. The assignment falls in the course of Food Security and Agriculture taught by Dr. Chubamenla Jamir,
