Food for thought

There is a race among the rich nations of the world to outsource food production. In what has been one of the most thought-provoking articles on food security and outsourcing food production, Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy analyst, enumerates the role of international private agribusiness entities in procuring farmlands across the globe. Moreover, these corporates are bringing in their own farm workers, production technology and equipment. This is leading to natives being displaced from their land. And the private operators are being solidly backed in this dangerous campaign by the World bank.
This new form of colonialism, where nations buy land overseas for farm produce, is being backed by amendment of national laws. China is becoming a major player in this land grab. After having been India’s role model for setting up Special Economic Zones, China is rapidly “inspiring” India on farm outsourcing. Indian players are now buying land in South America and Burma.
The fallout of this is dangerous. Displacement will lead to social unrest that will rattle the rural populace. Already the usurping of the so-called mono-crop areas for industries is unnerving the complex labyrinth of the Indian countryside. The loss of livelihood is driving the rural folk to cities, where they find themselves with very poor alternatives.
The Naxal upsurge in tribal and rural areas is a direct consequence of the assault on livelihood. Then there is this issue of national food security.
The Food and Agricultural Organisations of the United Nations defines Food Security as a situation when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
A newspaper report, quoted environmental activist Vandana Shiva as advocating decentralisation of food production to boost food security. “The food sovereignty of the people and the country should be respected,” she has said.
But we need land to produce food grains. We are doling out large tracts of cultivable land at subsidised rates to rich corporates to produce computer chips. What about food grains? Should we exchange hunger for growth.
And, the media sympathy lies with the Nano brand of industrialisation. How else can one explain its uncharitable words for Mamata Banerjee, whose Singur stand shattered the middle class Nano dream. I was startled at the media singing paeans for Gujarat’s Narendra Modi, into whose outstretched arms the “Singur-battered” Tatas found refuge. So what if Modi was in a tearing hurry to paint Gujarat with a new brush of prosperity to hide the stains of 1992.
I am not against industrialisation. But agricultural land is shrinking, and with that, our food production is shrinking too. Is there any way we can balance food production with industrial development, without upsetting both the applecarts.