Who will feed Uttar Pradesh?

By Devinder Sharma
08 Sep 2010

State governments are competing with each other to grab fertile lands of farmers and transfer these to industry. But with increasing population and decreasing arable land, feeding the people will become a huge challenge for states like Uttar Pradesh in the years to come.

Already marginalised and ignored by the policy makers, Indian farmers
resent land grab by government and industry

India is witnessing a thousand mutinies. Pitched battles are being fought across the country by poor farmers, who fear further marginalisation when their land is literally grabbed by the government and the industry. From Mangalore in Karnataka to Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, from Singur in West Bengal to Mansa in Punjab, the rural countryside is literally on a boil. Large chunks of prime agricultural land are being forcibly diverted for non-agricultural purposes.

While the continuing struggle against land acquisition for instance by farmers in Aligarh, which took a violent turn and became a political ploy, is being projected by media as an agitation by farmers for higher compensation, the reality is that a majority of the farmers do not want to dispense with their ancestral land. They are being forced to do so. The most critical, but until now ignored, aspect of this land grab is that it has serious implications for food security.

Let us take the case of Uttar Pradesh. The state has the largest population in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. Western parts of Uttar Pradesh, comprising the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains, have been considered part of the green revolution belt. In addition to 4.10 crore tonnes of foodgrains, it produces 1.30 crore tonnes of sugarcane and 1.05 crore tonnes of potato.
Uttar Pradesh produces more foodgrains than Punjab but because of its huge population, it is hardly left with any surplus. What is however remarkable is that Uttar Pradesh has been at least feeding its own population.

This situation is bound to change soon if the government continues with its land conversion policies. The proposed eight Expressways and the townships planned along the route, along with land being gobbled by other industrial, real estate and investment projects are likely to eat away more than 23,000 villages. Although Mayawati government has dropped the townships along the Yamuna expressway, but the company that is investing in real estate claims that as per their pact with the State government, they have to be given land in an alternative location.

Former Union Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh has in a statement said that one-third of total cultivable land of Uttar Pradesh will be eventually acquired.

This means that out of the total area of 1.98 crore hectares under foodgrain crops in Uttar Pradesh, one-third or roughly 66 lakh hectares will be shifted from agriculture to non-agriculture activity. Much of the fertile and productive lands of Western Uttar Pradesh will therefore disappear, to be replaced by concrete jungles. In addition to wheat and rice, sugarcane and potato would be the other two major crops whose production will be negatively impacted.

As per rough estimates, 66 lakh hectares that would be taken out of farming would mean a production loss of 140 lakh tonnes of foodgrains. In other words, Uttar Pradesh will be faced with a terrible food crisis in the years to come, the seeds for which are being sown now. Add to this the anticipated shortfall in potato and sugarcane production, since the area under these two crops will also go down drastically, the road ahead for Uttar Pradesh is not only dark but laced with social unrest.

Already lagging behind most other states in socio-economic development, Uttar Pradesh will surely see surge in hunger, malnutrition and under-nourishment. We can only imagine the socio-political fallout of the misadventure that the government is attempting with such a massive takeover of fertile land.

What is not being realised is that Uttar Pradesh alone will send all the estimates of the proposed National Food Security Act go topsy-turvy. At present, as per the buffer norms, the government keeps between 200 lakh tonnes to 240 lakh tonnes for distribution across the country through the Public Distribution System (PDS). In the last few years however the average foodgrain stocks with the government have been in the range of 450 to 500 lakh tonnes.

Even with such huge grain reserves, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed his inability to provide 35 kg of grain per month to every eligible family. Imagine, what will happen when Uttar Pradesh alone will put an additional demand of 140 lakh tonnes. Who will then feed Uttar Pradesh?

Policy makers say that with rapid industrialisation the average incomes will go up as a result of which people will have the money to buy food from the open market and also make for nutritious choices. But the bigger question is where will the addition quantity of food come from? Already, Punjab and Haryana, comprising the food bowl, are on fast track mode to acquire farm lands. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are building up ‘land banks’ for the industry and Rajasthan has allowed the industry to buy land directly from farmers setting aside the ceiling limit.

Internationally, the food situation is worsening ever since the 2008 food crisis when 37 countries were faced with food riots. Even now, food prices globally are on an upswing. As Russia extends the wheat export ban till the next year's wheat harvest sending global prices on a hike, deadly food riots were witnessed last week in Mozambique killing at last seven people. According to news reports, anger is building up in Pakistan, Egypt and Serbia over rising prices.

Knowing that the world can witness a repeat of 2008 food crisis that resulted in food riots in 37 countries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for a special meeting to discuss the implications.

Extended drought and resulting wildfires have caused a 20 per cent drop in wheat harvest in Russia sending the global wheat prices on a spiral. Wheat futures obviously would take advantage, and according to Financial Times wheat prices have gone up by 70 per cent since January. India may therefore find it difficult to purchase food from the global market if it thinks it can bank upon the international markets to bail it out. This is primarily the reason why several countries, mainly China and the countries of the oil rich Middle East are buying lands in Africa, Lain America and Asia to grow food to be shipped back home for domestic consumers.

Gone are the days when a worried Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, while addressing the nation on Aug 15, 1955 from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi said: "It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture." That was in 1955. Fifty-five years later, in 2010, UPA-II thinks that food security needs of the nation can be addressed by importing food. Land must be acquired for the industry, because the industrial sector alone will be the vehicle for higher growth. There can be nothing more dangerous than this flawed approach.

Global image, not poor farmers, is India's concern

By Devinder Sharma
04 Sep 2009

Lately, Indian negotiators in WTO have become extremely accommodating to the interests of the rich and industrialised world, even to the extent of sacrificing livelihood security of its crores of poor farmers.

Actually, Mr Pascal Lamy is right. When he said at the inaugural of the ongoing WTO mini-Ministerial in New Delhi yesterday that 80 per cent of the issues of the Doha round have been resolved, he was telling the truth. Whether we like it or not, the fact remains that those who are negotiating on our behalf, and I am talking of all the developing countries, are in reality keeping us in dark with their statements (which mean nothing) aimed only at pacifying the public galleries back home. The fundamentals and the broad contours of the Doha round especially in agriculture and NAMA have all been agreed upon.

India's Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, the host of the New Delhi confabulations, has mastered the art of saying nothing in as many words as possible. When he said: "In some quarters, it has been suggested that most issues have been settled and we are almost in the 'endgame'. However, if we look at the text modalities on agriculture and non-agriculture market access (NAMA) alone, it would be apparent that there are still gaps and a number of unresolved issues," he only meant that we have to fine tune by tightening the nuts and bolts of the agreement, and rest everything is almost settled.

You couldn't have expected anything better from Mr Anand Sharma. He knew that thousands of farmers were pouring onto New Delhi streets, and any guffaw could have boiled into an unsavoury situation. But those of us who have followed the developments in the run-up to the mini-Ministerial can easily decipher the real motive and objective of the Indian government. New Delhi was particularly perturbed at its global image of a 'bad boy' in the trade negotiations, and therefore was keen to give a message that it has now learnt to wag its tail. And that in future it will behave like a lapdog.

I am told that only a few days back, the Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar, had actually used the term 'looney fringe' for all those who are opposing the Doha round. It is however another matter that it is because of the 'lonney fringe' elements that India has been able to put up a strong front at successive Geneva negotiations. If it was not for the 'looney fringe' India would have been made to sign the Doha Agreement much earlier. Perhaps there would have been no need for the Doha round, and India's former chief negotiator, Anwar Hooda, who had switched sides to become a deputy Director General of WTO, would have been more than happy to conclude the agricultural negotiations during his tenure.

The New Delhi meeting is not about 'substantive' issues but on the process itself, meaning on how to take the Doha negotiations to its logical end. The Doha Ministerial declaration of Nov 14, 2001 had explicitly stated: "We shall continue to make positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries and especially the least developed among them, secure a share in the growth of world trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development." This mandate is the bedrock of the Doha round, says a discussion paper for senior officials meeting (which was held a day prior to the Sept 3-4 mini-Ministerial).

This mandate has somehow been relegated to the background. While I am not sure about the gains accruing to the least developed countries, I do not even know what is the gain in agriculture and NAMA for India from the Doha round. Although the Commerce Ministry says that it has the calculations ready, I doubt if they can establish that the Doha round would be in any way beneficial for Indian agriculture, and the livelihood security of its 600 million farmers. I am willing to challenge them for an open debate, and they can also bring along their backroom boys from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS), Indian Council of Research in International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and the Indian Institute for Foreign Trade (IIFT).

That agriculture is being sacrificed for the sake of services was clearly and loudly brought out by a delegation of the agitating farmers of BKU which had met Mr Anand Sharma a day before the conclave. The delegation had made it abundantly clear that Special Products and the Special Safeguard Measures (SSM) that are on the negotiating table, do not protect the interest of Indian farmers. Mr Sharma had merely repeated what he and his predecessors have been saying for long: We will not compromise on agriculture.

In fact, in a high-level closed door dialogue that happened a week earlier, the message that came out very clearly was that agriculture and NAMA were through (except for some modalities that need to be worked out), and India was pinning hopes by putting services on the table now. This is the right time to get something in services, a senior bureaucrat had said. If we don't get anything now, we will never be able to extract anything significant. As far as my understanding goes, this in itself was a flawed assumption. This is not the right time to seek any headway in services sector.

The US and EU are already grappling with economic recession, and any commitment at this stage on services would be politically suicidal for them. They are however looking at the developing countries to bail them out of the recession by providing more market access in agriculture and industry. And this is exactly what India is trying to help them with, by bringing in like-minded developing countries who are willing to walk an extra mile to appease the masters.

It was however really heartening to see more than 50,000 farmers converging in New Delhi yesterday in a show of solidarity and strength. New Delhi has not seen such a disciplined and strong protest for a number of years now. While the farmers who came to New Delhi may not understand the nitty-gritty of the negotiations, but what they know for sure is that it is their future and survival that is being placed on the chopping block.

I sometimes wonder what has happened to the brilliant minds that we often talk about. What has happened to all those economists, researchers and analysts who at least used to express their scepticism and doubts in their essays and analysis. They were truly the watchdogs of society. Today, I find the breed of lapdogs growing at a phenomenal pace. The media too, more importantly the pink media, has joined the tribe. You hardly find any article that is even remotely critical of WTO or FTA. You will of course see the backroom boys of the Ministry of Commerce dominating these pages. Didn't I say the lapdog breed is multiplying??

I remember at the time of the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial, Pascal Lamy had said that Special Products is a carrot that he is dangling before the developing countries. These SPs are temporary measures, and have to be phased out over a period of time. The SSM is so complex in implementation that I doubt if we can ever use that instrument to stop import surges. What is more important is that while all these measures have to be gradually phased out, none of the developing countries have ever talked of asking the rich and industrialised countries to draw a phase out plan for their agriculture subsidies.

When will the Green Box, which houses 80 per cent of the farm support, be phased out? Do we know when will US and EU remove their subsidies under the Blue Box or even the Amber Box? The answer is that the developing countries have never emphasised on these subsidies. Even the Indian negotiators are not willing to open up the pandora box of subsidies. Which means that in essence the developing countries have ensured that agriculture in the OECD countries remains protected for posterity. Isn't this a betrayal of the interests of the developing country farmers? Shouldn't our negotiators be held accountable for allowing this to happen?

The subsidies (in these boxes) we are talking about is something close to $ 374 billion every year. In reality, the subsidy is much higher, if we include the implicit support also.

The G-20 has failed us. The G-33 has failed us. The G-77 has failed to point a finger at the inequalities in farm trade. Unless these blocks are able to bring back the issue of farm subsidies on the negotiating table, they should be asked to return back to their respective countries. Let it be clear: no deal is better than a bad deal.