Food
Stocks And Hunger --- II
Utsa Patnaik
IN
India despite the shortfall in supply with per head output falling, far from any
need for imports, we see precisely the opposite situation, namely both the
build-up of enormous public food stocks as well as net exports. This means that
per head availability, hence absorption, has been falling, and falling very
substantially (Table A). Every
one million tonne of addition to stocks means today almost one kilogram fall in
availability per head. The question is, why should average grain absorption
be falling in India despite rise in average
income? Nowhere in the world has such a phenomenon been observed under
normal conditions. Further, the daily per capita calorie intake from all foods -
not just foodgrains - has been falling slowly in urban areas and at a faster
rate in villages, according to the NSS data, and the period 1983 to 1993 has
seen a drop by 68 calories or Kcal, from 2221 calories to 2153 calories (Table
B). The only exceptions have been the states of Kerala and West Bengal, which
according to the same NSS consumption data, have seen rising per head cereals
intake and hence, have also posted rising per head total calorie intake in
both rural and urban areas, in sharp contrast to all other states. The
pro-poor policies in these two states have helped to enhance nutritional
security. In the states other than Kerala and West Bengal, taken together, the
fall in both variables, obviously, has been greater than the all-India average
fall. By the time 2002 data become
available the additional drop in average calorie intake over 1993-4 would be
large owing to the sharp fall in foodgrain absorption in the last five years.
This is a highly abnormal situation, and is again unprecedented in the history
of developing countries with positive income growth.
The
only answer lies in a very large increase in the ineq distribution during the
nineties, and in the poor being institutionally denied access to grain since
1997 owing to the misconceived targeting system under which the actually poor
are not being identified as such and are not being issued ration cards for
accessing cheap food. Economic reform
policies including targeting, have reduced a functioning PDS to a shambles
before our eyes and gravely undermined the little food security that the people
had.
MISCONCEIVED
NOTION
Many
of our economists have turned out to be latter- day Marie Antoinettes: they
think that the reason direct foodgrains consumption is going down is because
more animal products are being consumed, so there is nothing to worry about as
it is in conformity with Engel's Law which says that with rising income people
voluntarily substitute superior foods for inferior ones.
They would tell the poor who make up the majority of our population, so
what if you have over 100 kg. less of foodgrains to eat - consume milk, butter,
eggs and chicken and enjoy your more diversified diet. Would anyone but a Marie
Antoinette expect the poor to access sufficient calories from more expensive
animal products when they cannot even access basic foodgrains in adequate
amounts? In fact, Marie Antoinette may perhaps be forgiven her callous ignorance
of the condition of the poor, raised as she was in feudal opulence without any
contact with the people.
But
what can one possibly say of our economists with their doctorates? These
economists have been quoting the percentage shares of various food items in
expenditure in order to establish that the share of cereals is falling in all
expenditure groups and the share of animal products rising, and term this
dietary diversification. What these good but very simple-minded people forget is
that "dietary diversification" is as much a feature of falling
nutrition as of improving nutrition. For example, in Kenya where per capita
income has been falling, average calorie intake has been falling as well mainly
owing to a drastically lower availability of the food staples which includes
cereals and tubers - just as in India of late -, while calories from animal
products have risen but only only marginally leading to a large net loss of
calories. The average Kenyan by the mid-nineties was pushed way below the
poverty line calorie intake owing to a large net loss of 303 calories daily.
But in percentage terms the share of calories from foodgrains has fallen
and the share from animal products has risen - viz. the diet is more
"diversified".
We
have given Table C as an example of dietary diversification accompanying
worsening nutrition. In short, diversification
is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition for inferring
improvement in welfare. We need to look at a crucial additional fact
- is the per head total calorie intake going up- in which case nutrition
is improving - or, is it going down, in which case nutrition is worsening and so
is welfare. Both the bottom of
a valley and the very top of a mountain are flat, viz. flatness is a necessary
condition for a maximum as well as a minimum. We need to know an additional fact
to know where we are, and that is whether the ground all around is rising or
falling.
THE CORRECT
ANSWER
There is no need for our economists to be so confused by the fact that
average grain intake and calorie intake are going down despite rise in per head
income: sharply worsening income distribution plus institutional denial of food
access to the poor owing to targeting, is the answer. The top 15 per cent or
so of the population which accounts for at least half of total consumption
expenditure and whose share in income is rising, is indeed voluntarily
substituting superior foods for inferior ones, but the bottom sixty per cent is
suffering enforced and increasing denial of access to adequate foodgrains and
hence is suffering declining nutrition, owing to the decline of their purchasing
power and the institutional barrier erected by the requirement of the BPL
permit.
The
absorption, or availability of foodgrains in the economy is officially defined
as gross production less one-eighth
on account of seed, feed and
wastage, plus net imports and minus net addition to public stocks, and this is
divided through by population to give per head availability. If data on private
stocks were available that too should be considered, but we do not have such
data. Per capita availability figures are given every year by government in
terms of grams per day. Using this same definition but expressing the result in
kilograms per year, looking at Table A
carefully we find that per head foodgrains availability has fallen drastically
by 11.5 kg per head by the end of the decade, and that the last period alone,
the four years since 1997 accounts for 10.7 kg. out of this total
fall. The year 1997 is when the division of the population into above
poverty line (APL) and below poverty line (BPL) was made, and since then the
majority of the actually poor have been denied BPL ration cards because they
have not been identified as being poor. Off- take from the PDS has fallen
drastically as a result. The typical five-member household was consuming 58 kg
less of grain considering the three years centred on year 2000, compared to a
decade earlier. The criteria for
identifying a household as poor, and entitled to a BPL card, are quite arbitrary
and have the effect of excluding most of the actually poor. These criteria
include whether the family has a pucca roof to its house, whether it owns a television set, and
whether any member is in service. If any one of these conditions is satisfied by
the household it is denied BPL status: the absurdity of these criteria is
obvious.
To repeat, by last year,
per head grain availability has fallen further hit an unprecedented low of only
152.1 kg., which is nearly 23 kg. lower than in the early nineties. The average
family of five, was thus consuming last year nearly 114 kg. less of foodgrains
than a decade ago - a massive fall in intake. The poor in turn are consuming
even less than the average, for it is obvious that availability could not have
fallen for the rich, who are indeed consuming a great deal more of animal
products. The nadir of food availability had been reached in British India with
136 kg. per head during 1945-46. The present government, through its inaction,
is doing its level best to ensure that this nadir is reached once again. Without
a determined and conscious policy of increasing purchasing power and removing
the institutional barrier erected through targeting, the danger of widespread
starvation will soon become a reality for the poorest segment of the population.
FOOD
SECURITY
UNDERMINED
This
statement regarding starvation is not idly made. Food security systems can
collapse very fast with wrong policies, the system has been already severely
undermined, and in a still poor country, starvation is a hair's breadth away.
There is nothing wrong in principle with the PDS or with its distribution
mechanism, and it worked well for a quarter century from 1965 to 1991. The
reason it started packing up after 1991, and has reached a crisis point today,
is because purchasing power especially in villages, has collapsed under a
combination of government's contractionary fiscal policies and the effects of
globally falling farm prices as protection was removed and the poor have been
excluded from the PDS by the misconceived targeting of the food subsidy. Those
who think that all we need are a couple of years of drought which will lower
procurement and increase off-take, are dangerously mistaken. Even three years of
drought will do nothing to lower stocks in the absence of expansion of
purchasing power: all that will happen is that farmers, already hit by falling
employment and falling prices, will suffer further income loss as their output
falls with drought, and many will die. Nor will decentralisation of the PDS help
in the least, for state governments do not have the fiscal powers to take over
the central government's responsibility of restoring aggregate demand and
managing the food economy.
FOOD
FOR WORK
PROGRAMME
The
present food stocks mountain, and annual exports of three million tonnes
represent not a surplus, but a huge deduction from the necessary consumption of
the people. The immediate and urgent measure is to go back to the
earlier universal system, issue ration cards to all who want it, and make
foodgrains available at the present BPL rates to all. A substantial part could also be distributed free in
drought-affected areas. This would immediately raise the off-take from the PDS
by at least about 8-10 million tonnes a year, but excess stocks would still
remain. Longer term policies of restoring purchasing power need to be started on
an urgent basis, and the stepping up of food-for-work programmes to cover every
state whether drought affected or not, is the obvious answer. It has been
pointed out that with the banking system awash with liquidity and industry in
recession, Rs 16,000 crore annually can be mobilised easily for infrastructural
development. To this we may add that with 45 million tonnes of unutilised excess
foodgrains stocks, it is only the foolish and callous neo-liberals who would
hesitate to launch a massive food-for-work programme for restoring mass
purchasing power and at the same time ensuring infrastructural and social sector
development in rural areas. This is an issue on which the left and progressive
movement needs to mobilize politically, and to do so fast before a very bad
situation worsens further.
People's Democracy