Expectations from Budget for Revival of Food Security of India
Expectations from Union Budget for the Revival of Food Security of India
By:
Vijay Sardana
Blog: Vijay Sardana Online
Follow on twitter: @vijaysardana
India has lost
its food security in last few years. We are dependent on international market
for our protein and edible oil requirements from 30% to 70% respectively. The only thing India
has is carbohydrates. Our food import bill is going up and our exports are
going down. Food inflation is out of control and farmers are not getting proper
price for its commodities due to increase in cost of food production.
1. Hon'ble Mr. Prime Minister Sir, Please Release Food Security plan of India – Due to population growth and income growth, India needs about 20 million tons of additional food every year. What is the plan to feed growing food demand? Till date there is no agriculture plan in India with clear targets and timelines, leading to food inflation, food crisis, decline in food exports and growth in food imports.
2. Revive agriculture extension services and data compilation services – without knowledge transfer, agriculture productivity will not improve, farmers are not getting timely input about crop production and related information.
3. Promote natural resource conservation: Soil and water conservation must take priority by tax incentives without natural resources food production cannot happen.
4.Prevent food wastage and losses: Post-Harvest Management is the key to food security and inflation management. Invest amount and use tax incentives to reduce the food wastage to less than 10 percent. Invest in warehouses in big way to save food loses and wastage. India waste food worth Rs. 80,000 crore every year, more than black money generated in the system. Can we have same seriousness like demonetisation?
5. Promote Fair Trade Practices in Agriculture & Commodity Markets: Ensure 100 e-payments in agriculture commodity markets by giving incentives. Encourage cooperatives to become part of APMC, eNAM and futures market. Stakeholders direct participation will minimise manipulation in futures markets. APMC are government sponsored monopolies and government must change the structure of APMCs and make all cooperatives and FPOs part of management committees of these APMCs.
6. Strengthen Rural Banking infrastructure: Without this e-payment and fair trade practice is not possible. About 600,000 villages are still outside banking system.
7. There must be correlation between MSP and Customers duty: If MSP is revised and simultaneously custom duty is not revised, this reduces the marketability of farmers produce and dependency on imports goes up. Example edible oils, pulses, etc.
8. Livestock sector needs sensible planning like Poultry, Dairy and Fisheries are directionless and without substance. The proposed plans lack logic and merit. There must be comprehensive review of all these plans at all levels. There is no Feed and Fodder plan for livestock and we assume they will contribute in farmers income and national food security.
9. Review FSSAI functioning to promote value addition: Food laws are not encouraging food safety, make the function of FSSAI transparent and accountable. This will promote consumers trust on food safety and export potential and value addition. Why FSSAI is hiding producers of bad products by not declaring their names on FSSAI website like every other country do. What is the motive of FSSAI to keep bad product on shelves and by not warning consumers about unsafe products in market place? Are they paid to keep quite or not sure about their own work and findings?
10. Funding for Agriculture research needs review: Today there is no accountability of agriculture research system. They should be accountable and if possible encourage Public funding for private sector with clear milestones to create completion to public sector. Mandate of research institutes are outdated; they all should be reviewed at the earliest. Stakeholders should be on the board of these institutes to give direction. Based on their outputs, is seems they are suffering from in-breeding of ideas and making them irrelevant in globalised economy.
1. Hon'ble Mr. Prime Minister Sir, Please Release Food Security plan of India – Due to population growth and income growth, India needs about 20 million tons of additional food every year. What is the plan to feed growing food demand? Till date there is no agriculture plan in India with clear targets and timelines, leading to food inflation, food crisis, decline in food exports and growth in food imports.
2. Revive agriculture extension services and data compilation services – without knowledge transfer, agriculture productivity will not improve, farmers are not getting timely input about crop production and related information.
3. Promote natural resource conservation: Soil and water conservation must take priority by tax incentives without natural resources food production cannot happen.
4.Prevent food wastage and losses: Post-Harvest Management is the key to food security and inflation management. Invest amount and use tax incentives to reduce the food wastage to less than 10 percent. Invest in warehouses in big way to save food loses and wastage. India waste food worth Rs. 80,000 crore every year, more than black money generated in the system. Can we have same seriousness like demonetisation?
5. Promote Fair Trade Practices in Agriculture & Commodity Markets: Ensure 100 e-payments in agriculture commodity markets by giving incentives. Encourage cooperatives to become part of APMC, eNAM and futures market. Stakeholders direct participation will minimise manipulation in futures markets. APMC are government sponsored monopolies and government must change the structure of APMCs and make all cooperatives and FPOs part of management committees of these APMCs.
6. Strengthen Rural Banking infrastructure: Without this e-payment and fair trade practice is not possible. About 600,000 villages are still outside banking system.
7. There must be correlation between MSP and Customers duty: If MSP is revised and simultaneously custom duty is not revised, this reduces the marketability of farmers produce and dependency on imports goes up. Example edible oils, pulses, etc.
8. Livestock sector needs sensible planning like Poultry, Dairy and Fisheries are directionless and without substance. The proposed plans lack logic and merit. There must be comprehensive review of all these plans at all levels. There is no Feed and Fodder plan for livestock and we assume they will contribute in farmers income and national food security.
9. Review FSSAI functioning to promote value addition: Food laws are not encouraging food safety, make the function of FSSAI transparent and accountable. This will promote consumers trust on food safety and export potential and value addition. Why FSSAI is hiding producers of bad products by not declaring their names on FSSAI website like every other country do. What is the motive of FSSAI to keep bad product on shelves and by not warning consumers about unsafe products in market place? Are they paid to keep quite or not sure about their own work and findings?
10. Funding for Agriculture research needs review: Today there is no accountability of agriculture research system. They should be accountable and if possible encourage Public funding for private sector with clear milestones to create completion to public sector. Mandate of research institutes are outdated; they all should be reviewed at the earliest. Stakeholders should be on the board of these institutes to give direction. Based on their outputs, is seems they are suffering from in-breeding of ideas and making them irrelevant in globalised economy.
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