Weather-proofing Food Security

Weather-proofing Food Security
 

News: The editorial covers details concerning food inflation in India, factors impacting food security and steps to contain food inflation among specific categories in India.
 

What is Food Security?
 According to United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security, Food security means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
 It is combination of 3 elements – Food availability, Food access and Food utilization.
 

What is the need for Weather-proofing Food security?
 Impact of Climate change on food production, livelihoods and health.
 Majority of population are at risk of crop failures, hunger, malnutrition and they are concentrated in regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-east Asia.
 The possibility of El Nino, and it could cause below-normal rainfall, even a drought. It can push more people to poverty.
 

What is Inflation scenario in the country?
 The food and beverages component in the Indian CPI has a weightage of 45.86%. Managing this component to around 4% is critical to control overall inflation. It is difficult to manage this component through Monetary policy or Fiscal policy alone.
 The biggest crop of the kharif season is rice. Rice inflation for April was 11.4% Wheat inflation is still very high at 15.5%. The overall cereal and products inflation is still at an uncomfortable level of 13.7%.
 While talking about milk and milk products. The inflation in this category is also high. It has the highest contributions amongst all commodities. High inflation here is attributed to 2 main factors – Lumpy skin disease and high fodder price inflation.
 

How can Food inflation across rice, wheat, milk and beverages products be managed?
 A large number of population is receiving free rice and wheat under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana so they are already protected from cereal inflation.
 The rice stocks with the FCI are more than three times the buffer stock norms for rice. So to control rice price inflation it can unload 5 million tonnes of rice from the Central Pool in open market operations, and easily bring down the rice inflation to around 4%.
 Lower Import duties on Fat is another option reduce milk inflation. The policy instrument to use is to lower import duties on fat, which are currently at 40% and skimmed milk powder (SMP), which is at 60%. Indian prices of SMP and fat (butter) are much higher than the global prices, and therefore, by reducing import duties to say 10 to 15%, there would be some imports of fat and SMP. That could help in reining milk and milk product prices.
 Cultivation of Fodder crops must be promoted through subsidy or incentive programs.
 Although latest forecast about the Impact of El Nino is yet to be made by IMD but we can be prepared by introducing drought-tolerant crop varieties, expanding irrigation, restricting rice exports, storing and distributing grains, expanding social protection coverage can help reduce the impact of climate.
Source – The Hindu