{"id":1051,"date":"2007-11-06T08:30:13","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T08:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afrikaansenuus.co.za\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2007-11-06T08:30:13","modified_gmt":"2007-11-06T08:30:13","slug":"will-india-run-out-of-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/?p=1051","title":{"rendered":"Will India run out of food?"},"content":{"rendered":"
India needs to act swiftly and concertedly to enhance its farm productivity in order to keep the frightening spectre of global food shortages at bay, and ensure it’s comfortably food secure. The stagnation in global agricultural production ever since the mid-’90s has ominous portents. Farmers would have to feed three billion more mouths by 2050.<\/p>\n

The Russian government has enforced a cap on food prices from October 15 to December. In China, too, food inflation is higher — at roughly 8% — than ever before, and considerably more than its general rate of inflation (a little below 3%).<\/p>\n

Our policymakers, too, would do well to realise that the current consumer price index (CPI)-based food inflation is much higher (an average of 6.9%) than the general rate of inflation at 3.02%. Clearly, our largely rain-fed agriculture has to be freed from the vagaries of weather. And that can be accomplished only through rapid industrialisation of the farm sector with special emphasis on developing a scientific and efficient irrigation system.<\/p>\n

But such industrialisation entails consolidation of land. India’s agrarian order — which is primarily subsistence-based and where average farm size is four acres — is hardly conducive to such industrialisation. Technology per se may be scale-neutral, but high levels of capital intensity require scale economies.<\/p>\n

Consolidation of land is, however, not purely a technical issue. In a country where land distribution is, in most parts, extremely inequitable and clear land titles a rarity, it’s well nigh impossible to effect large-scale consolidation of land in a democratic manner. Clearly, such consolidation must be preceded by a comprehensive land reform programme. Such an approach is, however, long-term and would yield enhanced agricultural productivity only over the next couple of generations.<\/p>\n

Efforts must, therefore, simultaneously be made to figure out ways by which small farms can increase their productivity in the short term. Simple and low-cost technological innovations such as gravity-fed drip-irrigation kits, and human-operated treadle pumps can reportedly increase the earnings — obviously following a concomitant rise in productivity — of quarter-acre farms by as much as Rs 22,000 a year.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u0434\u0435\u043c\u0438\u0441\u0435\u0437\u043e\u043d\u043d\u0430\u044f \u0444\u0438\u043d\u0441\u043a\u0430\u044f \u043e\u0434\u0435\u0436\u0434\u0430 \u0434\u043b\u044f \u0434\u0435\u0432\u043e\u0447\u0435\u043a \u043a\u0443\u043f\u0438\u0442\u044c<\/a>\u0410\u043b\u0435\u043a\u0441\u0430\u043d\u0434\u0440 \u0424\u0438\u043b\u044c\u0447\u0430\u043a\u043e\u0432 \u043f\u0440\u043e\u043a\u0443\u0440\u043e\u0440<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India needs to act swiftly and concertedly to enhance its farm productivity in order to keep the frightening spectre of global food shortages at bay, and ensure it’s comfortably food secure. The stagnation in global agricultural production ever since the mid-’90s has ominous portents. Farmers would have to feed three billion more mouths by 2050. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[21098,427,1016],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c51-international-news","tag-s19-english","tag-international-news","tag-will-india-run-out-of-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}