The Hindu Business Line : Swaminathan for food security consortium

THE setting up of a Food Security Consortium of India to ensure freedom from endemic hunger has been suggested by the agricultural scientist, Dr M.S. Swaminathan.

``Such a consortium will be timely. However, we need to address the issue of food security at home before we go overseas,'' Dr Swaminathan said at a seminar here on `Indian agriculture and agro-business drivers of economic growth' on Wednesday.

``Addressing the issue of nutritional divide is the only way to improve productivity,'' Dr Swaminathan said. He is of the opinion that a national grid of community food banks supported by projects as the rural godown scheme is the best way of ensuring both freedom from endemic hunger and low transaction cost storage and distribution.

``Community food banks will also help to enlarge our food security basket by encouraging the continued cultivation of nutritious millets, pulses, tubers. Such crops are also better adapted ecologically to dry farming conditions,'' he said.

According to him, a decentralised system of procurement and storage is ideal for reducing transaction and transportation costs. Community feed and fodder banks can enable landless labour families to take to animal husbandry. Achieving productivity, quality and income revolutions in farming is another step to India becoming an agro-power.

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Swaminathan for food security consortium