Processed food won't feed the poor

By Devinder Sharma
22 Mar 2010

Government is extending all possible support to the food processing industry on the pretext of food security and reducing wastage. However, the facts say the processing industry prefers imported ingredients over local food leading to increased wastage and rise in food prices.

Food processing will only make food dearer for poor
We repeatedly hear that India ranks 66th among the 88 countries categorised in the IFPRI Global Hunger Index. This is happening at a time when 40 per cent of fruits and vegetables go waste due to improper storage and in transportation, and that too in a country which is the second biggest producer of vegetables, experts tell us.

However, this flawed argument is very cleverly used to push food processing as a solution. Whether this will help in ensuring food security for the poor and have-nots is something that is very clearly ducked by the industry. No wonder, the Planning Commission is making available roughly Rs 1.50 lakh crores in the 10th and 11th Plan period for the food processing industry. It isn't therefore surprising when you hear radio advertisements telling you about Rs 50 lakh subsidy available if you set up a food processing plant.

First of all, this statistical figure of 40 per cent existed even when I was a student some 30 years back. I am sure ten years from now, we would still be hearing this data of 40 per cent wastage, while no body is making an effort to find out whether the wastage has been reduced or increased. The figure of food loss is used by the industry to seek more subsidy, more funds. And the academicians, and the policy makers, ostensibly appalled by the extent of food wastage, and in their ignorance support the massive subsidies demanded by the processing industry.


However, Yoga guru Swami Ramdev recently made it abundantly clear that the processed foods do not feed the poor and hungry. His organisation Patanjali Vidyapeeth in Haridwar had recently set up a food processing unit, probably one of the biggest in the country. As someone who is actually engaged in food processing, it was revealing to learn from him that the processed foods are expensive and therefore not an answer to the bigger question of feeding the country.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has also made budget allocations for the food processing industry. He has been more than kind to the food processing industry. He has allotted five food parks and given concessions on machinery for food processing equipments, which of course would be welcomed by the industry. Considering the impact of the policies, I wonder how it will help in addressing the food challenge for the country. Now, we know that food waste has to be minimised, but why do it in the name of feeding the poor?

Often the industry quotes another statistics - only 2 per cent of the food in India is processed, which is a pittance considering what the US and Europe does. This is something that I cannot digest. In fact, this is a misinformation campaign simply to hoodwink the gullible consumer to believe how urgent is the need to set up food processing plants.

Let us look at it dispassionately. In the Indian households most of the food is cooked and is processed at the home level. In other words, 100 per cent food is processed, the only difference being that it is done at the household level. The statistics that we quote are therefore misleading. If this food is not being processed by the industry, is there a problem? Does it mean that the processed food in the market would be more healthy and nutritious? If not, than why are we promoting a shift in our food consumption habits and patterns just to expand the reach of the market?

In the US and Europe people increasingly rely on processed foods from the shops because they do not know how to cook. In the OECD countries, the agri-business industry has over the years succeeded in building up the dependency for food supplied through shops. People are forgetting how to cook at home and eat healthy.

Not surprising to know that in the US alone, more than 4 lakh people die every year from obesity, and its related suffering. In other words, from eating the wrong food.

Considering that there is no need for us to follow the US and European models and increase the sale of processed foods in the shops. There is no need for us to spread the faulty information and 'educate' the people that they don't have to waste time in cooking, and that it is demeaning for the women to be in the kitchen. But yes, increasing number of members from the nouveau riche class feels ashamed in spending enough time at home to cook, and it is this class or generation that suffers more from diabetes and heart-strokes.

With growing awareness over health issues, consumers in India (and elsewhere) should be directed to reduce their growing preference for processed foods. Now from ready-to-serve paranthas to canned dal makhani are available on the supermarket shelves. Forget about the taste, they carry several harmful ingredients. Some people may find these products very useful, but I strongly feel that we need to educate the young on the advantages of cooking at home. It is not only economical, but also healthy and nutritious.

All industries thrive on subsidies and bailout packages. This is how the GDP goes up, and the manipulative Industrialists loot the State exchequer. More than any one, our industry is capable of taking care of itself and does not need support or handholding from the government. The subsidy allotted for the food processing industry should have been given to the farmers who are in dire need of support. If the farmer welfare is given adequate consideration, the entire food chain would be safe. And we can shun the processed foods, we will help the present generation, and also save the future generations from the unhealthy and hazardous foods that are being marketed.

Swami Ramdev has already inspired the nation to take control of their health in their own hands. We now have to extend this to the food that we consume. We have to take control of the food we eat. There is a need to build up a nationwide campaign on healthy cooking and healthy eating. As to the role the agri-business industry can play, I suggest it pays attention on rampant food adulteration that prevails.

If the industry can somehow ensure that the raw material and the ingredients that we need for our daily consumption are safe and pure, it would be no less than a revolution. At the same time, processing industry need not be always high tech and sophisticated in the manner that it bypasses some of the normal requirements that people have, like milk-based products (especially sweets) that are at present highly adulterated.

Equally worrying is the increasing dependence of the food processing industry on imported fruit concentrates. If you import orange concentrate from Brazil/Chile and then provide juice in tetra packs, this will not help reduce the 40 per cent fruits that go waste. In fact, the fruit wastage will increase. How can one justify that our own harvest of oranges/kinnows goes waste while the industry finds it convenient to import concentrates from abroad? Simply put, the arguments in favour of food processing that it would help in food security and reduce wastage are not based on sound logic and ground realities. But our policy makers are more concerned about the demands of the industry than the ground reality.

GM forests or fuel mines?

By Pandurang Hegde
20 Mar 2010

Enough harm has already been done to the environment under the garb of development. Now, novel ideas like GM forests are being proposed as a new alternative fuel for the automobile industry. It's time for the world to learn from its cyclical mistakes, and fast!

Man's attempts to play with nature have now gone too far
(pic courtesy: The Ecologist)
As if the nationwide debate on Genetically Modified brinjal was not enough, we now have international agencies like the FAO rooting for GM trees. Surprisingly, while they suggest this, they presume that a forest full of GM trees will not lead to any more angst among the people.

According to the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) State of the World's Forests report (2009), a global pattern is emerging that reflects a correlation between economic development and the state of the forests. Forests around the world are under severe stress due to numerous demands caused by rapid economic development.

Those countries that have achieved high growth of economic development are able to stabilize or increase their forest area, while countries like India, that are undergoing rapid economic development, tend to struggle with immense pressure on their forests.

It would be too naïve to conclude that rich countries have stabilized the forest cover on their own. With their economic and financial muscle power, they have conserved their forests to provide ecosystem services while meeting their timber demand from the forest-rich regions of Asia or Latin America. Thus they have successfully and conveniently transferred the pressure to poorer countries, causing more harm to the indigenous population.

The demand for tropical hardwood from Europe and USA is the main cause of destruction of natural forests in tropical countries. It is this voracious appetite for tropical hardwood that is playing havoc in the agrarian economies of countries like Burma and Cambodia.

India, while following the same model of development, also has a large middle-class population that has put tremendous pressure on the existing forests. The expansion of mining in forest areas has threatened the existence of forest-dwelling tribal populations. Conflict over natural resources in forest-rich belts of states like Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh has resulted in a long-drawn battle between locals and industries, creating fertile hotbed for Naxalite insurgency. Ironically, the very forests that served as their lifeline have become a curse for these locals.

At this juncture, international forestry experts at FAO are looking at forests as an alternative source of fuel for the automobile sector after having burnt fingers with the agro and bio-fuels as a panacea to replace fossil fuels.

Jan Heino of FAO Forestry Department predicts, "Developments in science and technology will have an enormous impact on the future of forests and forestry. Trees may become the major source of fuel for cars, replacing oil." In many developed countries the research is geared towards developing genetically modified super trees that can overcome the slow gestation period with high capacity to produce cellulose fuels. This strategy has the added benefit of producing wood fuel on forest land without any negative impact on agricultural crops as with agro fuel, and unlike GM food crops, GM trees will face little opposition.

Nevertheless, there are apprehensions about these giant GM trees. The monoculture plantations might have a negative impact on forest biodiversity and on those indigenous communities that have forever lived in the forests. Sunderlal Bahuguna, pioneer of the Chipko Movement, says: "Commercialization of forests led to the destruction of biodiversity and introduction of exotic monoculture plantations. These are not forests but timber mines, as they cannot perform the multiple functions of a natural forest. Similarly, GM trees would accelerate the process of conversion of existing diverse forests into fuel-generating plantations. These should be called 'fuel mines'."

Clearly, the FAO approach is based on the narrow, parochial understanding with commercial benefits as the main objective. In contrast, the Chipko approach is based on the holistic understanding of forests as a source of soil, water and air.

It would be appropriate to look at the future of forests in terms of safe deposits for humanity that provide ecosystem services. The crisis of global warming has heightened the need to conserve and raise bio-diverse natural forests.

The ecosystem services of forests are no more evident than in case of the national capital Delhi, which depends on the Yamuna to meet its water requirement. The water flow in Yamuna is dependent on the forest catchments in Himalayas. Similarly, in the south the Cauvery meets the water requirement of cities like Bangalore, pumping it from a distance of 250 kilometres. The forest catchments for Cauvery lie in the Western Ghats. But in both cases neither Delhi nor Bangalore is interested in paying for the ecosystem services provided by the forests.

It is unfortunate that both the state governments and the people have ignored this basic principle of payment. Ignoring this factor may have long-term consequences for water security in the coming decade.

Empowering India with imported wisdom?

By Devinder Sharma
17 Mar 2010

A section of influential Indian middle class remains obsessed with anything foreign, more so American. No wonder, instead of making efforts to improve the education system of the country, the government is keen to invite the foreign universities to help educate India.

The Union Cabinet has cleared the Foreign Educational Institutional (regulation of entry and operation) Bill, which aims to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India. This Bill follows the two controversial Bills pending for Parliamentary approval - the Nuclear Liability Bill and the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill.

Kapil Sibal, the Minister for Human Resource Development, is visibly excited. He is quoted in the media, saying: "A larger revolution than even in the telecom sector awaits us." Well, we all know that the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Nothing can be more dangerous than programming the mindset of the young generation of India through an education system that has nothing to do with the great culture, tradition and wisdom that our ancient civilisation endowed us with. The present crop of politicians, more worrying are the younger lot that the Indian media talks about every day, are so myopic that they can't see anything beyond Europe and America.

If this is all that these politicians are capable of thinking and doing, I sometimes wonder why shouldn't we have political representatives from Europe and America sitting in Indian Parliament? After all, they will do the job of re-colonising the country much more efficiently than their sub-standard Indian clones.

There are a large number of people in this country who are sold out to everything American. They live in India, but have an American dream. They will find fault with the higher education system in the country, and wouldn't mind even if the country's education system is eventually taken over by substandard colleges and universities from North America, Europe and Australia. It is in this context that I find the editorial in the Economic Times (Mar 17, 2009) under the title 'University of California, Ghazipur' interesting. This is what it says:

"But such a law is unlikely to open the floodgates for foreign providers of quality education. The reality is that 'for-profit' describes hardly any of the world's best institutions of higher learning. In any case, the Bill stipulates that all profits would have to be ploughed back into the Indian venture and not repatriated. Only second rate outfits not allergic to some accounting innovation that allows them to circumvent this ban are likely to invest in Indian campuses."

Isn't it a shame that the country that gave the world its first universities, is now feeling thrilled that some of the B-grade foreign universities are likely to open campuses in India, if the government has its ways.

I have been lecturing at various universities abroad, and have always come back disappointed at the level of competence.

Read the complete article @http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1105

Bailing out the richest

By Devinder Sharma
12 Mar 2010

Forbes magazine says India has almost twice the number of billionaires than last year. Strangely these richest of the rich gained when the world economy was badly hit by the meltdown. Was it despite or due to the economic recession?

Economic stimulus package helped billionaires
to increase wealth (courtesy: ndtv)
In 2009 when the world was bogged down by economic recession, and some ripples were also felt in India, an estimated $20 trillion was pumped in to boost the global economy. India too provided a bailout package, in three instalments, totalling to approximately Rs 3.5 lakh crore.

In February 2010, when Finance Minister was to present the annual Budget, the media had launched an orchestrated campaign saying that the economic bailout package should not be withdrawn. You could see almost every TV channel (and the pink newspapers) bombarding day and night how damaging it would be for the national economy if the bailout package was withdrawn.

Participating in the discussions on Budget, I did make it loud and clear (to the discomfort of the economists on the TV panels) that the bailout package was not required in the first instance, and should be withdrawn immediately.

Subsequently, I heard the Prime Minister say that only 1.5 lakh jobs were created in 2009 (against the projected 12 million). I guess this statement was used by the industry and business to defend the need for the continuation of the bailout package.

In my understanding, the bailout package was actually a dole to the industry and business to strengthen its bottom line. If you think that the layoffs in the industry were because of the economic recession, you are highly mistaken. Recession was very conveniently used by the industry to go in for labour-shedding, nothing more than that. Ask those journalists who have lost their job recently, and they will tell you they were laid-off not for reasons of economic meltdown.

Nevertheless, the economic meltdown provided an excellent opportunity for the rich to amass more wealth. Otherwise there is no way that the world's wealthiest club can grow wealthier at times of an economic meltdown. The bailout packages came out handy for the rich to accumulate more wealth, and that too in the name of rebuilding the global economy.

View the complete article@ http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1087

Inclusive Value Chains in India

08 Mar 2010

A review by Sudhirendar Sharma

Mainstreaming small producers
Market influence notwithstanding, current development processes attach great importance to market-led economic growth for poverty alleviation. With 'pro-poor growth' being the leitmotif running through much of the recent development debate, poverty alleviation is increasingly associated with small scale commercial farm and non-farm activities. A key concept is the development of value chains integrating farmers into local as well as high value markets.

The idea of 'value chain' assumes that market-led development generates the income sustaining itself. It is, however, different matter that more efficient markets drive out less competitive producers. So it is by no means clear to which proportion the rural poor will eventually benefit from value chain interventions. Value chain development is a necessary condition, but by itself not sufficient to respond to the problem of economic exclusion.

Amul is one the earliest example of effective value chain, much before 'value chain' as a concept came into vogue. Though it reaches out to over two million people and is profitable, it has not made its producers rich although it provides them with a reliable supplementary source of income. Using 14 different case studies, the author concludes that the value chains which are promoted by private for-profit businesses grew much faster than those which were promoted by nonprofit organizations.

Without doubt, value chain perspective helps to explore the growth potential of specific rural products and allows targeted interventions activating them. But the question is to what extent 'value chain development' can in fact serve as a core concept of rural development. Since some of value chain interventions are specific to particular products, markets provide the basis of a value chain strategy as it impacts short-term employment through raise in wages.

In reality, value chains may have manifold and highly differentiated effects on wages, job quality, competitiveness, distributional, and social & environmental issues. What's more, these effects are closely interlinked; improvements in one field may alter complex power relations at the local level, often deleterious in the long run. Given the long-term impacts of value chain interventions, immediate economic gains may remain ephemeral!

The book provides pragmatic insights on what works and what doesn't on a subject that is becoming increasingly important in fighting poverty in rural areas.

Inclusive Value Chains in India by Malcolm Harper, World Scientific, Exclusive Distribution in India by Books for Development, Bangalore, 289 pages, Rs 695

When the Rivers Run Dry: By Sudhirendar Sharma

A world tour of hydrological madness
If ever I were to write a book on water, this could be the one. When the Rivers Run Dry seems an unfinished title for an unflinching look at the current water crises across the world. Fred Pearce, an accomplished science writer, elucidates the remaining half of the title in ten riveting sections to the book. Based on author's travels across thirty countries, the book provides most complete portrait of growing hydrological crises and its widespread ramifications for us all.

Pearce contends that the West is committing hydrological suicide with its water 'footprint'. One ton of water for drinking, about 50 to 100 tons around the home and as much as 2,000 tons to grow the crops that feed and clothe a person during a year cannot sustain humanity for long. And if you buy a t-shirt made of Pakistani cotton, eat Thai rice or drink coffee from Costa Rica, you may be helping reduce flow in the Indus, the Mekong and in the Amazon. Called 'virtual water trade', it uses about 1,000 cubic kilometers of water annually or the equivalent of 20 River Niles.

It really is as stark as that. Pearce has gone to great lengths to show the reader what has gone wrong with our civic and personal attitude to water use the world over, and by highlighting some of these diminishing or dried up water sources, we must rethink our actions. The immensely readable prose is no simple manual for the consumer to be less wasteful in the home; it is about such compelling facts that make the case for a new water ethos. Pearce takes the reader to often unheard of places to pepper his text with reflection, often presenting both the micro and the macro picture at the same time.

The facts and narrative create powerful imagery that is backed by penetrating analyses and passionate advocacy. It is investigative journalism at its best, advising the world's governments to stop focusing on the money and instead look at the best interests of the world's rivers, wetlands and aquifers. Pearce' dogged research and writing teaches the reader something 'new' on a subject that may be grossly known. And he is not a doomsayer because he highlights the efforts being made the world over to reclaim fresh water too. Just read it!

http://www.d-sector.org/readGraf-next.asp?catid=8&id=157

Art, science and commerce of Brinjal

By Sudhirendar Sharma
08 Mar 2010

If a large section of mainstream media is to be believed India may soon witness mass hunger, demoralised scientists and economic recession if Bt brinjal is not allowed to be commercially cultivated.

Childhood memories of brinjal, popularly called baingun, are curiously uniform across the country. As kids, no one seemingly had any fascination for the violet vegetable. From elongated to round and from small to big, brinjal diversity has always been on offer without many takers to savour its predictable recipes. At school, brinjal helped children remember 'violet' being a conspicuous colour of the rainbow. Rarely would the relationship with brinjal extend any further.

That the lowly vegetable would gain national significance and the hyperactive environment minister adding a 'brinjal' on his cap could be the gravest surprise ever. That some of the 2,400 varieties of brinjal that middle class mothers selected from the vegetable vendors would be under pest threat unless impregnated with an alien gene could be no less amusing.

This would have made my grandmother happy who, as a staunch vegetarian, had an eerie feeling about some legless worm roaming freely within the encased flesh of brinjal. Pest control in brinjal had meant liberal sprinkling of woodstove ash to ward off the devouring pest from its broad leaves. Since no one ever heard of a pest epidemic on brinjal, the indigenous method had seemingly worked to keep the market price of brinjal under check.

But this has seemingly not gone well with those who consider that Olericulture, the science of growing vegetables, be given a lesson. After all, science has to progress even if the poor brinjal has to be its unsuspecting guinea pig. And, why should it matter that an annual 8 million tonnes of brinjal production in the country is not under any crisis? The bedtime story of a tiger devouring a lamb for the crime that it never committed seems real for once!

Could the lowly brinjal cloud the scientific vision of the country? It seems it already has if the thwarted exasperation of the science & technology minister is anything to go by. The minister argued that the scientists would be demoralised should the progress on Bt brinjal is put on hold for long. One would expect the scientific community to contest such irresponsible utterance because brinjal isn't the only topic of research they have been engaged in!

The minister, Prithvi Raj Chavan, reminds me of my history lessons. While his namesake stood for bravery, courage, principles and patriotism, the modern-day Prithvi Raj is behaving more like Jaichand. History has been known to repeat itself and it seems to be doing so again after 820 years. But that it will repeat with characters switching sides has been beyond imagination. Brinjal is sure to rewrite history!

A bit of history has already been written. Unassuming brinjal has triggered a new wave of nationalism, with people rallying around the most unlikely of symbol to assert patriotism. For once, brinjal is at the centre stage of discourse to challenge colonialism of the kind that takes genetic route to control peoples' lives. If nothing else, it has helped identify the enemy within.

Brinjal has clearly become a big hurdle on way to a $1 billion a year seed industry, with any number of paid employees of the biotech industry and those willing to accept any kind of 'sponsorship' vouching for its safety. The same biotech industry that had thumped safety related aspects of Bt cotton now secretly accepts that not only have cattle died after consuming Bt cotton residues but skin allergies to farmers have been on the rise too. By its own admission, the pest resistant vigour of Bt cotton has been on the decline.

Without doubt, the claims on Bt brinjal are not above suspicion. Science ought to be held accountable, as no one can afford slow genetic transformation on account of consuming genetically modified vegetables. A recent report indicating conversion of male rats into females through exposure to widely used weed killer atrazine has sent alarm bells ringing. A genetically modified food product could indeed be doubly potent. One would only argue that the proponents of Bt brinjal are well within their means to push science and to make profit but not at the cost of making bhartha of our lives.