These days when you turn on any news channel on the television, or open the editorial page of the corporate owned newspapers preaching neo-liberal economic policies, you will find that host of so-called 'experts' are sitting on the dais or writing long articles on how to curb the spiralling food prices, especially in the wake of the rise in the prices of onion and pulses. These 'experts', whose credentials are doubtful, are full of opinions on food crisis, and keeps on reiterating similar suggestions to curb the inflation that had been in the press since decades, 'import food', 'reduce subsidy', 'increase corporate involvement in marketing food products', etc. They keep on parroting same lines, every time they are asked to comment on the food crisis, and I doubt strongly that these people have ever been to a real paddy field or seen how the food grains are purchased from the peasants and sold in the market?
I will take this opportunity to explore the background of the food shortage in India, understand the market forces that controls the prices of food grains and vegetables and possible avenues to resolve the same within the legal framework of the country.
The recent price rise is blamed on the inadequate rains during the kharif season, with agricultural experts claiming that despite adequate and above normal rainfall in many parts of the country; there had been regions where the rainfall was inadequate. This caused shortfall in production which the experts anticipated and warned the market regarding the same.
The vegetable prices along with the prices of pulses, now costing between Rs. 80 per kg to Rs. 130 per kg, is spiralling rapidly during this season when new crops are expected to arrive in the market. The country had a record downfall in pulse production this year and the onion production has also experienced some shortfalls, causing it to reach Rs. 80 per kg in Delhi. If we even consider the shortfall of total production of the crops in the country, there are few factors that we need to examine, which can be considered as major contributors to the price rise.
The adoption of the neo-liberal economic policies since the days of the Narsimha Rao government of the 90’s the real estate industry has gradually grown in the country, and received a flip of boost since the days of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA government, which opened the flood gate of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in most spheres of the economy. The expansion of the real estate activities caused a shortage of land in the urban and semi urban areas and it saw the real estate sharks hunting for rural agricultural land to build ‘eco friendly’ townships for the affluent sections of the Indian urban society.
The land grabbing by the real estate sharks was not deterred by any political force in the parliamentary politics of India, as the most lucrative industry that generates a great volume of black money serves our political leaders very well in investing and minting money. Rather than preventing agricultural land acquisition by real estate sharks and corporate giants, the Modi led BJP government is pushing hard their revised Land Acquisition Act, which will add further teeth to the land hungry corporate giants greedy expansion in the rural India.
The shrinking of agricultural land has caused great pressure on the cultivable land to feed the country with a billion population mark, leave alone exporting of a vast range of food grains of better quality to foreign docks. This factor has added to the fall in the agricultural production in India, a country where the agriculture sector employs the majority of the people but is recording decrease in its contribution to the national economy since years.
The growth of urban consumerism promoted by the intensified investment of foreign big monopoly and finance capital in FMCG, automobiles, electronics, mobility and other such industries, has caused the banking and financial services, which also gets huge foreign monopoly-finance capital investment, thanks to the efforts of consecutive governments of the BJP and Congress, to decrease rural lending and increase involvement in urban crediting. This has left the peasantry of the country, especially the poor and middle peasantry, with a dearth in agricultural credit and forced them to look forward to receive loans at exorbitant interest rates from the private lenders, which leads them towards more pauperisation.
Thanks to the neo-liberal economic policies, which are marketed by carefully drafted news paper articles by corporate controlled media to win over the middle and affluent classes in its favour, the government has reduced subsidies to diesel, fertilisers and host of other farm equipments and agricultural inputs. This policy has significantly raised the cost of farming for the poor and middle peasants, and leading them more towards private lending under the circumstances discussed in the previous paragraph.
The government’s much hyped Minimum Support Price for the food grains produced by the peasants is only enjoyed by the rich landlords and feudal patriarchs, who are able to grease the palms of the bureaucrats involved in purchasing harvests, and the poorer sections are left in the mercy of the dubious middlemen – trader nexus that buys crops and vegetables mostly during distress sale at a throw away price, as the poorer peasants are unable to pay for the preservation and storage costs of the crops after paying the huge interests for loans, taken due to the high input costs in farming. It is of no wonder that why each year numerous peasants commit suicide in this country after the harvesting season.
The private intermediaries buying food grains and vegetables from the peasants and selling them to the stockist and traders received jolt when the Vajpayee regime started dismantling the ration system that was working under the Public Distribution System. The Food Corporation of India had grains rotting in its warehouses while the people of the country were facing food crisis and high inflation. The Public Distribution System or the PDS was developed in post independent India to combat hoarding and stocking of essential food grains and other goods by the black marketers. The dismantling of the system was done by the Vajpayee government with immense propaganda and launching of schemes like “Antodaya Anna Yojana”, which promised the poorest of the poor of the country food grains at a cheap rate, however, it had been a project that never benefitted the real poor of the nation, thanks to the bureaucracy – politician nexus.
The NDA government led by the BJP under Vajpayee allowed the Future Trading on food commodities and other essential commodities during its tenure, which boosted speculative trading in food grains and following the gradual deregularisation of the prices of diesel and petrol, it gave a shot to the arm of the black marketers, who could now stock food grains and vegetables along with other essential edible commodities for an anticipated higher price. The future trading continued unopposed under the Congress government of Manmohan Singh and the Modi government is also not keen to disturb its functioning. The lack of public distribution of food grains, vegetables and other edible items like pulses and spices through fair price and regulated shops has given a boost to the business of the food and essential commodity traders, who have made a fortune out of the lack of proper government intervention in the system which affects a billion of Indians.
The spurt of super markets growing in the urban areas and serving the affluent sections of the society also got help from the speculative trading, as the big corporate bodies that invested in the retail industry used their own in house trade speculation advisory to price the products as per the trend of the market. The speculative trading even made it possible to buy and sell bonds of food grains, vegetables, edible items, etc even before the seeds are sown in the real field. The growth of corporate involvement and investment in the agri industry also made contract farming a very lucrative deal for the rich landlords and feudal classes, who now works as a contractor to supply the corporate with a promised amount of food grain, which mostly goes into agri-industry that produces exorbitantly priced commodities out of food grains and vegetables. The growth of nexus of feudal landlords and the corporate houses made it possible for the latter to extract a huge output from the farms as raw materials for their companies and creating a crisis for the general markets.
In the meantime, the Congress government also tried to expand the scope of genetically modified crops by allowing the GM 'brinjals' (aubergine) to be cultivated for the Indian market, which soon faced immense opposition from peasant organisations, scientists, environmentalists and other progressive forces. Though the government retreated temporarily from the move to implement the genetically modified crops, which is a variant of toxic crop that destroys the fertility of the land and not suitable for consumption as well, there are backdoor attempts under the present regime of Modi to have the GM crop cultivation policy enacted and implemented on a nationwide scale, to help the multinational corporations earn huge profit from such cultivation and make the Indian peasantry look up to the MNC’s for seeds every time they want to cultivate crops.
The government of India, especially under Modi, has significantly reduced the budget allocations for rural development, especially for the development of proper irrigation system, which is quite essential to increase food production in a country where the peasants are still left to the mercy of monsoons at a time when the country is boasting on technological advancements. The reduction in funds for developing rural infrastructure will also hamper the proper storage and transportation of the crops, which will help the intermediaries to reap profit from the agony of the peasants who will keep on selling crops at a throw away price to them.
The major supply crisis of Indian agricultural products is caused by a section of traders – speculators – landlords – corporate – and black marketers, who profit by creating artificial shortage of supply by hoarding huge amount of agricultural produce in their warehouses, and by bribing the politician – police – bureaucracy nexus they make a fortune.
If the government of the country bans future trading, stops land grabbing by real estate and corporate sharks in rural India, implements a progressive land distribution system among the real tillers, strengthens the Public Distribution System by infusing energy and vitality in it with strict vigilance, increases farming credits and fix higher targets for the public sector banks to provide farm credit to the peasants at a low interest rate, invests heavily in developing rural infrastructure and irrigation facility, builds up more cold storages and ware houses for the peasantry to store their crops without paying high prices, increase subsidy in fertilisers, fuels and electricity for peasants and above all crack down with a heavy whip the network of black marketers and traders hoarding food crops and edible commodities; the inflation of food products will not be under control but will also not dare to haunt the Indian people for a long time.
Importing food grains or increasing MSP cosmetically are outdated solutions for a country where the food prices are controlled by strong syndicates of notorious traders and feudal lords who calls the final shots in the national politics. There cannot be any cosmetic solution to this complex problem where one factor promotes the other in the way the so called ‘experts’ comments on the TV or writes in the corporate owned newspapers. They keep on reiterating same thing in different words and their views has no connection with the real world.
This crisis can be well managed by the government, if it has a strong will to resolve the issue. However, as the trading lobby holds the purse string for the funding of the political parties, especially the ruling BJP being a party that traditionally represents the upper caste Hindu traders, it is impossible to expect the government to curbing the menace of the black marketers and traders causing inflation of food products reach higher peaks.
During the mid 60’s of the last century a militant movement of the left wing forces of the country, especially in Bengal, known for the famous ‘Dumdum Dawai’, (named after a part of North Calcutta where this movement reached its peak) a well orchestrated attack by the people on the hoarders and black marketers that dehoarded food grains stocked by the latter in their warehouses, can be a classic example of how the common people can participate in massive democratic movements which can not only bring down the food prices immediately, but also instil fear among the anti-social elements in the trading community who reap profit at the cost of the miserable condition of the broad masses of the country.
As it is quite an infantile wish to have the government that represents the interest of the feudal lords, traders and corporate bodies to act against the same powers that sponsors it, the people will have no other recourse than to opt for organising themselves against these forces of evil by uniting under the banner of strong democratic struggle for their foremost basic right, the right to live. As the spiralling food prices will soon drive more people into a state of destitution and starvation if the democratic struggle for food is not launched right now.
