Hot, dry, hungry

Suman Sahai

Despite the India Meteorological Department’s brave pronouncements, the monsoon this year is looking to be as disturbed as it was last year. A disturbed monsoon has a direct correlation with a deficit in food production. This happened last year and in all likelihood will happen again this year unless the monsoon in north India picks up immediately. These weather uncertainties are being attributed to climate change, a result of anthropogenic or manmade factors. The anticipated changes in climate and its impact on agriculture and food production are of great concern to tropical countries like India. The developing countries in the tropics are less able to adapt and are more susceptible to climate change damage than the temperate countries, many of which will be beneficiaries.

There is a broad consensus that tropical areas are slated to see an expansion of arid zones. This will be accompanied by a contraction of 31-51 million ha of favourable cultivation areas and a significant reduction in food production in the most vulnerable areas where population density is high and food already scarce. Nearly one billion affected people live in these vulnerable environments, dependent on agriculture. These vulnerable populations have limited capacity to protect themselves from the environmental hazards that will accompany climate change, like drought and floods, and will suffer most from land degradation and biodiversity loss.

The Polluter gets Paid
Climate related impacts on food production will be geographically unevenly distributed. In a perverse irony, the developed (industrialised) countries will experience an increase in agriculture productivity potential as temperate regions get warmer. The regions which because of their industrialisation and huge emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are responsible for the climate change phenomenon will actually end up being its beneficiaries with respect to food production. On the other hand, today’s developing world in the tropics, which has not contributed to creating this climate hazard, will be its worst victim, and will suffer a loss in agriculture productivity, with serious consequences for food availability and hunger.About 40 poor and food-insecure countries, with a projected total population (in 2080) of one to three billion, will lose 10-20 per cent of their cereal-production potential. Of these, Africa will be the worst affected followed by South Asia. Crop production losses as a result of climate change could further worsen the prevalence and depth of hunger. This burden will fall disproportionately on the poorest. To compound the damage, the overall trend of reduced food production will create market imbalances, which will push up international prices, making it even more difficult for governments of food scarce countries to access food for their poor.

According to estimates, a little less than half the production potential in certain developing countries could be lost. In South Asia, the biggest blow to food production is expected to come from the loss of multiple cropping zones. The worst affected areas are predicted to be the double and triple cropping areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh from where the surplus grain for our buffer stock comes. This means areas where two to three crops are produced in a year and which are predicted to turn into single crop zones, where only one crop can be taken in a year because the rest of the season will be too hot and dry for cultivation.

Coping with wheat loss
For South Asia, particularly India, one of the most serious impacts is anticipated in wheat production. Wheat is the single largest winter crop of north India and states like Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh produce the surplus wheat that goes into the PDS. Wheat is a particularly temperature sensitive crop and it has been estimated that for every one degree rise in temperature, wheat producing areas in India and South Asia will lose about four to five million tonnes of production. This will have a cascading effect on food for the poor.

The immediate challenge is to find a substitute for wheat as the dominant winter crop for north India and other parts where wheat is cultivated. Tubers like potato, can be part of the solution. These could fill the shortfall to some extent but the cereal deficit will have to be made up by some other cereal. Corn could be suitable as a supplementary crop and a partial wheat replacement. Millets are as yet an unexplored option and have not been assessed for potential. Although millets typically grow during the summer in Asia, there are also several millet types which are cultivated at high altitude. Such millet germplasm could form the basis of developing new varieties suited for cultivation during the winter season of a changed, warmer climate regime.

The ability of a country to cope with the impact of climate change on agriculture will depend on a number of factors. The total amount of arable land and available water resources will be critical determinants of the ability of regions to adapt to the changes brought by a warming world. Apart from land, the availability of water could become a critical limiting factor. For instance, the impact of global warming on the Tibetan plateau and Himalayan glaciers will affect the 10 or so main rivers like the Indus, the Mekong, the Yangtze and the Brahmaputra that come out of there and flow into China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. Harnessing these river waters as the ice caps and Himalayan glaciers recede and the water flow in rivers diminishes, will need skilful diplomatic negotiations so that river waters can be shared in such a manner as to ensure that requirements of agriculture are met in all affected countries.

India has technical skills in agriculture and a sophisticated farming community capable of combining indigenous knowledge with recent scientific advances. The country is rich in biodiversity and community experiences from diverse agro ecological zones offer a number of options to find solutions. All this would enable the agriculture of the region to cope with climate change impacts provided a comprehensive and effective policy response is put into action right away.

- Dr Suman Sahai, a genetic scientist who has served on thefaculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg, isconvenor of the Gene Campaign

Starve the people and feed the rats

Suman Sahai

The Supreme Court has had to step in once again and tell the government to do its job and feed the poor. In this case, the Court’s injunction was with respect to the food grains rotting in government godowns over which there has been a public hue and cry. The Court has directed the government to make the food that is stored and on the verge of rotting, to be made available to the poor.

The government acknowledges that food worth crores is destroyed every year due to poor and insufficient storage facilities. Yet it has done little about increasing the storage capacity for food. Mountains of grain, collected over years, are rotting in the open, in states like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In Punjab alone, this grain could feed three lakh people. When state governments appeal to the centre to release the food stocks so that the poor have food, the government’s economists stop them from doing so on the ground that it would be bad economics. So the central government holds the grain, allowing it to rot; the people get hungrier, the youth in villages after years of deprivation get enraged and take to the gun. The Indian heartland is exploding to the sound of grenades as the economists do their calculations and discuss inflationary pressures.

In government warehouses where construction is shoddy there is seepage from the ground below and leaks from above. The bags get wet, fungus destroys the grain , making it inedible, even as animal feed. In addition rats make holes in the bags and eat up large quantities of grain, leaving behind their excreta to further poison the food. The food lost during storage is keeping millions of Indian hungry.

Even as it watches this destruction of precious food, the government has failed to take any action to fix responsibility and punish those responsible for such criminal actions. Business as usual continues , callous neglect and corruption being par for course, food is

destroyed season after season as malnutrition ravages the countryside and India’s hunger and malnutrition figures slip below Sub Saharan Africa. When this came to light in 2009, the Agriculture Minister told Parliament that he would examine the matter. A year down not a single cubic foot of additional storage space has been built.

Warehouses and godowns are actually bad forms of storage. The bags that are stored first, lie at the bottom, rotting because they cannot be taken out first. It is the bags on top , the most recent ones, that get taken out when food has to be sent out. The cardinal principle of storage, ‘first in - first out’ is violated by the warehouse method of grain storage. The answer is grain silos. These vertical structures of steel allow grain to be poured in from the top and taken out from below. First in- first out, no damp since the structure is off the

ground, easy to keep waterproof since the metal does not allow seepage and damp, so no fungus. No rats or rodents either, nor their excreta. Just clean dry grain, ready to be taken out and trucked wherever it is needed. Is the government taking steps to introduce this straightforward solution to rotting food grains? No it is not. Plans have been made instead to send a delegation to China (one more junket with all hands on board) to study how the Chinese tackle their grain storage issues. Many helpings of chowmein later we will have an analysis of how the Chinese manage their business but we may not get even one grain silo.

The odd thing about the silo is that it is not a new concept for India. In many parts of eastern India, especially places like Jharkhand and Bihar, the traditional grain gola, a small silo like structure is used to store grain at the local level, perhaps for a cluster of villages or even at the block or taluka level. In the British period, grain golas were used to stock food grains during the famines and food shortages created by colonial policies. These structures were made of galvanized iron and had a fairly long life. They are still around. There is no reason why a network of large grain silos and smaller grain golas can not be erected across the country to store food grain cleanly and reach it efficiently and quickly when the need arises. Let this government’s ambitions of nine percent economic growth begin with feeding the hungry in this land with the food that has already been roduced.

Rotting Food, Hungry People

Suman Sahai

EVERY OTHER day there is either a newspaper report or an editorial comment lamenting the loss of food grain stored in buffer stocks. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, while prophesying a bumper kharif crop, admits he is worried about not having adequate storage for the produce. At a national conference in 2003, the Central Warehousing Corporation said it had covered storage capacity for 48 million tonnes of food grain. In 2002, the country had 63 million tonnes of food grain in buffer stocks, 15 million tonnes more than it could store. This grain was sold in the international market at prices below the cost at which it was procured by the government, because there was no storage space. That it was not distributed to the poor is another story.

Pawar, who also looks after food and public distribution and consumer affairs, needs to explain why even seven years after holding all three important portfolios, he has failed to increase the country’s capacity for stocking grain. Known for his administrative skills, why has Pawar restricted himself to moaning about poor and inadequate storage facilities, instead of getting up and doing something about it.

The government acknowledges that food worth nearly Rs 60,000 crore is destroyed every year due to poor and insufficient storage facilities. This lost food is keeping millions of Indians hungry. To add insult to injury, the government spends about Rs 2.6 crore of the tax payers’ money to get rid of food grain that has rotted during storage.

Even as it watches this destruction of precious food, the government has failed to take any action to fix responsibility and punish those responsible for such criminal actions. It is business as usual: callous neglect and corruption being par for the course, food is destroyed season after season as malnutrition ravages the countryside and India’s hunger and malnutrition figures slip below Sub-Saharan Africa.

When the shocking figures of grain loss came to light last year, Pawar told the Parliament that he would set up a committee to examine the matter. A year later, he has been crowned the Prince of the ICC, but not a single cubic foot of additional storage space has been built. Nor have those who routinely oversee the destruction of the country’s food harvests, been questioned, let alone punished.

Mountains of grain, collected over years, are stored in the open in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, covered by plastic sheets. They get wet in the rain and rot. In Punjab, the rotting grain is enough to feed three lakh people. When states appeal to the Centre to release the food stocks so that the poor have food, the government’s economists stop this, saying it would be bad economics. So the grain is allowed to rot, the people get hungrier, the youth in the hungry heartland get enraged and their anger gets seduced by the gun. India’s innards are exploding to the sound of grenades as the economists discuss inflationary pressures and the agriculture minister complains about poor storage facilities, as though it was someone else’s problem to fix.

Even in warehouses where grain is stored indoors in gunny bags, the damp gets to them because the construction is below par. When the moisture creeps in during the rainy season and the bags get wet, fungus destroys the grain, making it inedible. In addition, there are rodents that not only eat up large quantities of stored grain, but also leave behind their excreta to further poison the food. Together, fungus and rodents account for nearly 20 million tonnes of food grain lost every year, which is about a tenth of the country’s annual production.

STORING GRAINS in warehouses is a bad idea. The bags stored in the first phase lie at the bottom, rotting because they cannot be taken out first. So the bags on top, the most recent ones, get taken out when food has to be sent out. The cardinal principle of storage, ‘firstin- first-out’, is violated by the warehouse method.

There is a blindingly simple answer to this problem — grain silos. These vertical structures of steel allow grain to be poured in from the top and taken out from below. It is waterproof because the structure is lifted off the ground and the metal does not allow seepage and damp. There’s no room for rodents either, nor their excreta. Just clean dry grain, ready to be taken out and transported wherever it is needed.


Is the government taking steps to introduce this solution? No it isn’t. When MS Swaminathan and the National Commission on Farmers made this recommendation, the government response was to set up a committee, after a long delay, to examine its cost and effectiveness. Nothing has come of that so far, but plans are afoot to send a delegation to China to study how they tackle their storage problems. Many plates of Peking duck and lots of plum wine later we will have a report on how the Chinese manage their business, but we may not have a grain silo.

The grain silo isn’t a new concept for India. In Jharkhand and Bihar, the traditional grain gola, a silolike structure is used to store food produce in villages. In the Raj era, such silos were used to stock food grain during famine. These structures were made of galvanised iron and had a fairly long life. They are still around. There is no reason why a network of large silos and smaller grain golas cannot be built across the country. Let this government’s ambitions of nine percent economic growth begin with feeding the hungry in this land with the food that is already produced.

Suman Sahai, convener of Gene Campaign