The much hyped proposed Right to Food Bill had recently ran into rough weather with the PM’s Economic Advisory Committee turning down the proposal of the National Advisory Committee (NAC) over the magnitude of distribution of food. This brought the prime minister’s office in direct confrontation with the ruling Congress Party chief, Sonia Gandhi who heads the NAC.The PM’s Economic Advisory Committee was for targeting the poor while the NAC was for universal coverage. It has been proposed to distribute highly subsidized 35 kg foodgrains per family per month – rice at the rate of Rs 2 per kg and wheat at the rate of Rs 3 per kg.
Inaugurating the global conference on – Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health – organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in New Delhi on Thursday, Dr Singh said : “Since malnutrition is particularly high amongst the poor and the vulnerable section, this needs to be supplemented by viable social safety nets. We are committed to soon bring before our Parliament a Right to Food Act which will seek to ensure this outcome.”
The Prime Minister also made a case for genetically modified (GM) crops by supporting Golden Rice. “I understand that research efforts have made it possible to bio-fortify some crops for better nutrition outcomes. Golden Rice containing beta carotene provides the calories as well as nutritional supplements that take care of several diseases associated with vitamin A deficiency,” he said.
He also said that multi-grain flour that mixes soybeans, oats and millets with wheat in different product combinations was yet another approach to meet the challenge of malnutrition.
Dr Singh called for a major revolution in agricultural marketing. He suggested that technological advances should be combined with sound policies and gave the instances of the successes of Green and White Revolutions in the country. The upcoming 12th Plan would focus on modernization of agricultural marketing with the involvement of the private sector.
He said that malnutrition was a complex process in which habits regarding feeding the new born babies, maternal and child health, and also water quality were at least equally important.
“Malnutrition is not only a consequence of poverty, it is also a cause of poverty. A malnourished child is more vulnerable to disease and less able to earn a leaving. The complexity of causes that underlie malnutrition calls for a multi-sectoral strategy to address the three key issues of availability, access and absorption”, the Prime Minister said.
He said that experience has shown that rapid growth in GDP in general and, even agriculture in particular, though necessary, was not sufficient to produce desirable nutritional and health outcomes among the socially and economically disadvantaged groups of the community.
“The complexity of causes that underlie malnutrition calls for a multi-sectoral strategy to address the three key issues of availability, access and absorption…..We need to address the issues of absorption of nutrition, health and hygiene, which in turn depend on many other factors such as the availability of clean drinking water, sanitation and also on the education and status of women in society,” the Prime Minister said.
He narrated the steps taken by India to address these complex issue by citing examples of Integrated Child Development Services, Mid-Day Meal Scheme for school children, implementation of Right to Education Act to back Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Universal Education Plan), National Rural Health Mission, Swajal Dhara for providing a time-bound programme for ensuring clean drinking water to all habitations and women participation in agriculture.
The National Food Security Mission launched a few years back was designed to promote the spread of best practices that would increase productivity of food grains in areas and states where there was scope for such increase and there indeed is scope for such increase. Additional location, specific interventions like Eastern Region Development Programme to address underlying constraints to agricultural productivity and market opportunities are being supported. The constraints of infrastructure, various climatic stresses like moisture, salinity and floods are also being addressed. Programmes for diversified agriculture including horticulture, dairy, fishery, poultry and emphasis on millets having high protein, fibre and mineral content have been launched.
The Food and Disaster Management Minister of Bangladesh, Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque said that his country was implementing 60 food and non-food based targeted safety net programmes focusing on poor and the disadvantaged including women and children. The recently prepared Country Investment Plan articulates 12 prioritised programmes to help achieve the objectives in the medium term.
“I need to recall here that Official Development Assistance (ODA) to agriculture has been reduced to 4% in 2007 from 19% in the 1980s, which needs to be revamped. I would appeal to the international community to revive the spree of supporting research and innovation in agriculture through CGIAR front line research and researches of regional and national institutions,” he said.
Bangladesh’s Vision-2021 document has set, among others, the target of achieving self-sufficiency in food by 2021 and ensure a minimum of 2,122 k cal per person per day of food to all and bring down the poverty incidence to 15%.
He said that under SAARC, a number of institutional frameworks and initiatives have been devised for improving food security and leveraging agriculture for improving nutrition.