Perilous Times
Grain supplies rot in India as millions starve
by Staff Writers
New Delhi (UPI) Sep 14, 2010
In India, thousands of tons of excess grain have been rotting away,
officials said, as millions of people are starving.
Following news reports of the rotting grain, the government admitted
that more than 67,000 tons -- enough to feed 190,000 people for a month
-- had rotted outside overflowing granaries. Officials were ordered by
the Supreme Court to distribute to the poor 17.8 million tons of grain
that was in imminent danger of rotting.
The government, however, has yet to work out how it will distribute the
grain, The Hindustan newspaper reports.
With one-fifth of the country's population of more than 1 billion going
hungry and nearly half of its children malnourished, the rotting grain
issue calls attention to unresolved problems in India's grain storage
and distribution infrastructure.
The Indian government has enough storage for 15 million tons of grain
and rented space to hold an additional 10 million tons. But in 2008-09,
55 million tons were procured and ended up being stored in the open,
with no protection from the weather and vermin, Inter Press Service
reports.
Devinder Sharma, a New Delhi food and trade policy analyst said free
distribution of rotting grain to the poor should only serve as a
one-time solution for the current surplus and should be limited to the
150 districts considered desperately poor.
Instead, to guarantee food security and fair prices for farmers, he
said the solution lies in a system of local production and storage
starting at the village level and moving up to the state level.
"Free distribution will lead to political problems with every
politician trying to corner stocks for distribution in his state, if
not constituency," Sharma told IPS.
Kaushik Basu, chief economic adviser to India's finance ministry, in a
paper posted on the ministry's Web site, called for a revamping of the
country's grain distribution system, suggesting it engage in swap deals
on the global commodity exchanges. That would give India access to the
grain when it is needed, he said.
In a publication of the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania, Kavitha Kuruganti, trustee at Kheti Virasat Mission, an
organization that helps farmers in India's Punjab state cope with the
effects of "intensive agricultural models" or excessive cultivation,
asks why such massive amounts of grain have accumulated in the first
place.
Her answer, "It's got something to do with the impoverishment we are
subjecting most people in this country to."