300 million Indians go hungry
everyday!
One piece of bread a day / Was all I had,
Sometimes I would break it in half,
Sometimes, I could make it toast,
My children's bellies full / My stomach churning,
I drank water / To calm the burning,
I had more than most / Reminding myself of those,
Who have a handful of rice / Once a week,
They know fear / They know pain,
They know hunger / Far better than I ever could.
A lisha Rose's poem, Hunger, brings out the essence
of a grave problem that plagues not only India, but the
entire world.
According to the Global Hunger Index, India ranks 65th
out of 88 countries, with a hunger rate of 23.9.
India, which was largely unaffected by the recent global
economic slowdown, however, appears to have made
little progress in tackling hunger and malnutrition. The
situation remains 'alarming' in the country on this front.
Countries like Uganda (38th); Mauritania (40th);
Zimbabwe (58th) and many others have a better record
than India on this front. Even war-torn nations have
managed to combat the scourge of hunger quite well,
while India -- even though it boasts of being the second
fastest growing economy in the world -- languishes far
behind and millions in the country go hungry.
21 per cent of the Indian population is
undernourished
The report -- released on Wednesday by the
International Food Policy Research Institute, German aid
group Welthungerhilfe and Irish aid group Concern
Worldwide -- said that the number of malnourished
people was rising as a result of recent events.
"The current situation of food crisis, financial crunch and
global recession has further undermined the food
security and the livelihoods of the poor," it said.
The index ranks countries on under-nourishment,
prevalence of child malnutrition and rates of child
mortality.
It said 21 per cent of the Indian population was
undernourished (between 2003 and 2005), 43.5 per cent
Indian children under the age of five were underweight
(between 2002 and 2007) and the under five-years age
infant mortality rate in 2007 was 7.2 per cent.
46% of Indian children below the age of 5 are
underweight
In September 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
projected a food stock of 50 million tonne. Yet, close to
300 million Indians go without food every day!
India continues to burnish its international image with
initiatives like Brand India, a public-private campaign
whose stated mission is to 'build positive perceptions of
India globally'.
But when the prime minister acknowledged the country's
undernourished children as a 'national shame', the
statement highlighted how India's economic success co-
exists with its persistently high rates for hunger,
malnutrition, and income poverty.
According to the World Bank, 46 per cent of Indian
children below the age of five are underweight, and the
World Food Program says that close to 30 per cent of the
world's hungry live in India.
Does solution lie in biodiverse ecosystems?
According to a recent report in The Hindu, biodiverse
ecosystems contain naturally evolved genetic strengths
and unique food technologies developed by traditional
communities in different climates, soils and
temperatures. Harnessing and sharing these capabilities
equitably will help humanity adapt to rising temperatures
and the poorest of the poor feed themselves in harsh
climates.
To that end, the Chennai Declaration set out a series of
strategies that are the product of three days of intense
discussion, at the M.S Swaminathan Research
Foundation, of the senior representatives from
organisations across the world such as the UN
Environment Programme, UN Food and Agricultural
Organisation, International Rice Research Institute,
International Fund for Agricultural Development, World
Food Prize Fund, and India's National Biodiversity
Authority and Ministry of Environment and Forests.
"The declaration makes a bridge of issues at global,
national and local levels between the challenges for
conservation and food security," said Angela Cropper,
deputy executive director, UN Environment Programme.
These include: according economic value to the services
nature and agriculture rendered and setting up
mechanisms for payment for such services;
acknowledging that the custodians of biodiverse
resources are farmers and fisherfolk; finding markets for
neglected but nutritious crops; including rural
communities in biodiversity strategies; refocussing
research and development priorities and promoting
biodiversity literacy through public education to build an
ethic of conservation.
Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment
and Forests, present at the valedictory session, pledged
to take forward the 'wonderful ideas' contained in the
declaration.
He said he would do his best to integrate climate change
mitigation strategies with biodiversity conservation in
both national policy and in international discussion in
Mexico later this year. 2010 is the International Year of
Biodiversity.
India leads the world in hunger
Despite its economic successes, India leads the world
in hunger. According to the 2008 Global Hunger Index,
which is calculated by the International Food Policy
Research Institute, India has close to 350 million people
who are food insecure -- in other words, who are not sure
where their next meal will come from.
To put that into context, that is the same as the entire
populations of Germany, France and the United Kingdom
all going hungry.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation believes
that over 1 billion people will go hungry in 2009.
Almost 100 million (10 per cent) of those have been
made newly hungry by the Financial Crisis. By that grim
calculus, India's hungry have grown to at least 300
million, with India providing 30 per cent of the world
count.
Although this solved the water crisis, it made the food
crisis worse, as much of the crops that made it through
the drought were destroyed.

India is the second most populated country in the world.

With a population of 1.173 billion, the hungry make
up over 25 per cent or one in four in the country. The
percentage is probably better than it was fifty years ago,
but the absolute number is growing. Compare this to
China, which has a larger population (1.334 billion) and
which 50 years ago was arguably poorer.

It has managed to bring over 500 people out of poverty,

its hungry count is today less than 100 million, and that
number is shrinking every year.

What ails India?

In an article in EconomyWatch.com, Dwayne

Ramakrishnan wrote, 'Endemic problems such as
corruption, poor infrastructure and a lack of access to
funds continue to be a problem in India.'

The Congress government has been put a strong focus

on this area, for example allocating funds to go directly to
villages rather than through often corrupt local officials. It
was one of the reasons that Congress won the elections
with such a show of force - but more clearly needs to be
done.
2009 has been a particularly disasterous year for Indian
farmers. First there was there was the monsoon failure,
he said.
It is estimated that this knocked out 40-50 per cent of the
Kharif monsoon harvest.
Then at the end of the monsoon season, which is
normally dry, there were torrential downpours.
Key solution lies in technology
According to Ramakrishnan, the FAO believes that the
supply of available arable land is running out. At the
same time, farmers are either getting diminishing returns
from their current land, or they are having to put ever
more inputs to get the same yield.
Much of the progress in feed the world since the 1970's
has been thanks to the Green Revolution, pioneered by
Norman Borlaug, who helped the Mexicans to vastly
increase their crop yields.
He then took this technology worldwide, with fantastic
results in India and many other nations. Sadly, Mr
Borlaug passed on the 12 September 2009.
The Green Revolution relied on high-yielding crop
varieties, together with fertilisers and other methods to
more than double crop yields.
Since that great productivity burst, however, technology
has stagnated.
There is a great deal that newer technology can offer.
New crop varieties are being developed that require
considerably less water and nitrogen. Lasers can be
used to flatten fields, and sprinklers can greatly reduce
water wastage.
Governments in India and elsewhere need to focus on a
second Green Revolution to create another quantum
leap in productivity.
We need to get back on the path of hunger reduction that
we were -- until recently -- so successfully treading.
Otherwise the food riots of last year and doubling of
potato and lentil prices this year will seem like - pardon
the pun - chicken feed.
Bric agriculture ministers to discuss food security
A recent PTI report stated that ways to pool efforts to
ensure global food security were discussed at the first-
ever meeting of agriculture ministers of the dynamically
growing grouping of Brazil, Russia, India and China in
Moscow on March 26.
India is represented by Agriculture Minister Sharad
Pawar.
"The agriculture ministers of BRIC nations are to discuss
issues related to the food security and role of information
exchange in optimising their agricultural development,
including mitigation of negative impact of climate change
on it, by way of modernisation," a Russian agriculture
ministry release said ahead of the meeting.
With a total population of 2.83 billion, BRIC nations jointly
produce 40 per cent of wheat and are a source of 50 per
cent pork and more than 30 per cent of poultry meat in
the world.
The four nations are home to 42 per cent of the global
population and 32 per cent of the arable land.
The BRIC agriculture ministers are also expected to
discuss the problem of import restrictions in their
countries on the agricultural produce and ways to
remove them by adopting mutually acceptable standards
of quality control.
Experts here noted that the BRIC group of fastest
emerging economies would impart dynamism to the
positive development of global economy.
At the end of their one-day session, the BRIC agriculture
ministers are expected to adopt a joint declaration and
interact with the local business community.
Increased prices led to food insecurity
Rising food prices contributed to a significant increase
in food insecurity worldwide, particularly among poorer
populations. Approximately 1 billion people -- or one sixth
of the world's population -- subsist on less than $1 per
day.
Of this population, 162 million survive on less than $0.50
per day. At the household level, increasing food prices
have the greatest effect on poor and food-insecure
populations, who spend 50 to 60 percent or more of their
income on food, according to the International Food
Policy Research Institute.
Overall, increased food prices particularly affect
developing countries, and the poorest people within
those countries, where populations spend a larger
proportional share of income on basic food commodities.
Is India's prosperity one of the causes? What actually led to the crisis

Prosperity in countries like India is good but it triggers
increased demand for better nutrition, which in turn leads
to higher food prices, former US President George W
Bush said in 2008, leading to a major hue and cry.
Prior to this, then US secretary of state Condoleezza
Rice too had stated that 'apparent improvement' in the
diets of people in India and China and consequent food
export caps is among the causes of the current global
food crisis.
Several factors contributed to the rapid spike in global
food prices. These are:
• Increased consumer demand for food;
• Oil, and energy supplies among emerging
markets such as China and India, leading to
rising energy costs;
• Lower crop yields resulting from adverse
weather conditions and
• Higher corn prices stemming from increased
biofuel production.

Bush argued that there are many factors for the present
crisis, only one of which was investment on biofuels like
ethanol.

"Worldwide, there is increasing demand. There turns out

to be prosperity in developing world, which is good. It's
going to be good for you because you'll be selling
products in the countries, you know, big countries
perhaps, and it's hard to sell products into countries that
aren't prosperous. In other words, the more prosperous
the world is, the more opportunity there is," Bush had
said.

"It also, however, increases demand. So, for example,

just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350
million people in India who are classified as middle class.
That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger
than our entire population."

"And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding
better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high,
and that causes the price to go up," he said.
Bush also listed change in weather patterns and increase
in basic costs like that of energy as factors contributing to
higher food prices.
Subsequently, a significant increase in world cereal
production in 2008 led to improved global cereal stocks
and an associated reduction in the international prices of
most cereals, representing a 50 per cent decrease in
many cases since May 2008.
However, food prices remain high in most developing
countries.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization,
food emergencies, resulting from the combined effects of
chronic food insecurity and high food price levels, persist
in 31 countries, including 20 African nations.

In an article in The Hindu M S Swaminathan, Member of

Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and former chairman, National
Commission on Farmers, wrote:

With a population of over 1.1 billion, India's agricultural

strategy should aim to keep the Central and State
governments in a commanding position with reference to
the management of food distribution systems such as
PDS, Integrated Child Development Services, and school
noon meal programme.
Corruption in public distribution system causing
In the ultimate analysis, assured and remunerative
starvation deaths
marketing will hold the key to stimulate and sustain
farmers' interest in producing for the market. Climate The prime minister of India in his foreword in theReport
change may result in adverse changes in temperature, to The People dated May 22, 2007, claimed: "In this 60th
precipitation and sea level. year of independence, the country should have the
satisfaction of recording for the fifth year in a succession
Dependence only on wheat and rice will enhance
a rate of economic growth of over 8.5 per cent."
vulnerability to climatic factors.

Therefore, there should be revitalisation of the earlier The Asian Legal Resource Centre, however, is not sure

food traditions of rural and tribal families, who in the past
depended for their daily bread on a wide range of millets,
grain legumes, tubers and vegetables.
The PDS should include, wherever appropriate, ragi and
a wide range of nutritious cereals, inappropriately
referred to as coarse cereals, and tubers.
whether the estimated over 200 million Indians who are
presently suffering from malnourishment, and the many
more million who have done so during past decades, will
be satisfied with this growth.
The country's overwhelming population is often given as
an excuse to justify poverty and starvation in India.

This theory is applicable only if the state itself is poor and

India has the technological and economic capability to
demonstrate how farming systems can be adjusted to has no means to procure enough food for its people.

different weather patterns. India is not poor, even though 70 per cent of Indians are.

Defense spending of huge proportions in a country

where a section of the population equivalent to 2/3rds the
size of that of the United States is undernourished or
suffering from malnourishment, is difficult to stomach.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Food has highlighted this contradiction of priorities in his
report following his mission to India in 2005.
The management of the public distribution system suffers
from corruption particularly black marketing, caste
prejudices and the utter failure of various local
governments.
This is because the longer the people remain poor and
near starvation, the easier it is for the village-head to
continue subjecting them to bonded labour.
The actual number of households using the PDS is
around 91 million, significantly less than the 160 million
being claimed by the government. Seventy-eight per
cent of these persons are trying to make use of the
system -- 26 per cent are from urban areas while 52 per
cent are rural households.
Of these 91 million households an alarming 61 per cent
claim that the PDS is plagued by corruption and 49 per
cent claim that corruption has increased in the past year.
The PDS is viewed as the most corrupt institution in
India.
What needs to be done: A few suggestions
The Asian Legal Resource Centre requests the Human
Rights Council to:
• Recommend that the government of India take
immediate steps to prevent widespread
corruption within the PDS -- these steps must
include the establishment of independent and
separate mechanisms to investigate cases of
corruption in the PDS.
This mechanism must be independent from the local
police, as the latter is corrupt and therefore inefficient in
investigating corruption.
This requires a change in the existing domestic law --
The Essential Commodities Act, 1955, and the
government of India must be urged to make such
changes and facilitate this process;
• Request the UN Special Rapporteur on the
Right to Food to further study the specifics of
corruption within India's PDS system, so that
the Rapporteur can help the government to
address this issue more effectively;
• Request the government of India to urge its
state governments to set-up the required
number of special courts to deal with cases of
corruption within the PDS;
• Urge the government of India to expand a
functioning PDS network within the country, so
that it covers not only the 16 per cent currently
being covered, but covers all persons in need of
food security assistance.
• Request various UN bodies such as the UNDP
and the FAO to assist the Government of India
in addressing the issue of hunger and starvation
in India, particularly through proper and
vigorous implementation of development
programmes in the country.
• To further request the government of India to
immediately implement the recommendations
made by the UN Rapporteur on Right to Food in
his report - E/CN.4/2006/44/Add.2 - and to
make necessary policy changes required to
address this situation.