The Hindu Business Line : Sustainability index

THE M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), Chennai, recently held a meeting of experts to consider the preliminary draft of an Atlas on Sustainability of Food Security in India. While there is a general acknowledgement of the vital importance of food security in the sense of making food available to a country's population in a timely, adequate and affordable manner, there is as yet inadequate recognition of the dangers of any failure or omission on this score. If efforts for ensuring food security do not keep pace with the population and the pressure it exercises on land, water and other natural resources, there is every possibility of the social and economic fabric being torn asunder.

Food security, again, is not a one-time affair. There will be no point in time when it will be possible to say with finality that all that needs to be done has been done and that it is guaranteed in perpetuity. It is a continuing struggle in an ever-evolving situation to get the most out of limited resources by optimum utilisation.

Food security, to be meaningful, has, therefore, to be sustainable: The rate of replenishment of natural assets will have to be kept constantly higher than that of their depletion to meet the emerging needs. Sustainable food security implies a whole range of public policies and concerted public action for safeguarding, conserving and enhancing resources, laying down the direction of investments, selecting the right technologies and bringing about institutional and attitudinal reform.

The Atlas that is being finalised at the MSSRF seeks to measure the sustainability index of different States based on a weighted system of 17 indicators, chief among which are percentage changes in net sown area, foodgrains production per capita, projected availability of surface and ground water, forest cover, percentage of degraded area to total geographical area and the like.

There may be reservations on the weighting, suitability or even relevance of some of the indicators, but, at this stage, the Atlas is not aiming at perfection; its purpose is to initiate a country-wide debate precisely on the further refinements and corrections that need to be made so that, over time, it serves as a guide to policy making.

The exercise is no doubt welcome. However, instead of leaving it to individual think tanks to come up with their own separate sustainability formulations, the Centre should think of setting up a Sustainability Commission on the model of Competitiveness Commission to approach the problem holistically and on a uniform basis, and come up with suitable recommendations.

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