The Hindu Business Line : Exporting food, losing water

THERE is a new government in New Delhi. The NDA regime had made much of food `export', as an election plank. That food export was morally wrong, when millions of Indians starve, is just one aspect of this charade. The economics of it was equally baffling because the country, during the last two years, exported close to 35 million tonnes of foodgrains, principally wheat and rice, fetching the nation about $4 billion, which seems very impressive on the surface.

Foodgrains were sold at Rs 5 a kg, less than the price at which they were sold to the "below poverty line" families. Of the colossal food subsidy bill of Rs 28,000 crore for 2003-04, 75 per cent went to meet the minimum support price (MSP), a political largesse to the rich farmers of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, and 25 per cent to store the grain in the Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns. The MSP offer was not extended uniformly to all farmers. For those States which did not have the political clout in New Delhi, it was just an `offer' on paper. During this period, India added another 20 million to its already undernourished list.

What many people fail to see in this export charade is that the country exported along with the foodgrains enormous quantities of its very valuable water resources as well. For the 35 million tonnes of foodgrains exported, India also exported close to 103 trillion cubic metres of water. This is very important for India, where more than 70 per cent of the water sources developed at a huge cost to the nation serves only irrigation purposes.

If one looks at the agricultural scene in the country, it is copious irrigation plus abundant — often much more than what is needed — application of chemical fertilisers and pesticides — the hallmark of the "high input technology" of the so-called "Green Revolution" — that led to abundant harvests in the grain-rich States of Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

These are also the States where the irrigation facilities are fully developed. That India's water use efficiency is so very low is abundantly clear from the fact that while a cubic metre of water produces about 1.3 kg of foodgrain in the US, in India it produces just about a fourth, that is, about 0.3 kg. In other words if, for instance, India imports wheat from the US, that country derives a four-fold advantage, inasmuch as its water use efficiency is concerned, compared to India which loses its water sources to the same extent, when the exports proceed in the opposite direction. These comparisons might, on the surface, look purely academic, but, given the ground reality in the country, where more than two-thirds of its agriculture is rainfed, without any irrigation facilities whatsoever, these comparisons begin to make sense.

The country has been exporting mainly rice and wheat, both of which have low water use efficiency. It takes from 1,000 litres to 5,000 litres of water, depending on soil and environmental conditions, to produce a kg of paddy. For instance, while water use efficiency of paddy is Re 1 per cubic metre of water, that of cumin (jeera, a condiment) is Rs 25. In other words, if a farmer chooses to cultivate jeera instead of rice, he reaps a pecuniary advantage of 2,500 per cent. But one cannot subsist on cumin and it is no substitute for rice. That is why one has to be extremely careful while exporting this very important staple of India.

At present India's grain production efficiency, on an average, is 2.7 tonnes per hectare for which nearly 6,00,000 cu. m. of water is diverted for irrigation. India has 1,897 cu. km of water resources per year, on which there is a great stress and continuous drain, because of misuse and abuse.

To meet India's grain requirement in the next quarter century, at current production averages, the country will have to increase by a 100-fold the present water diversion levels for irrigation. Where will all this water come from? What will be the enormity of the environmental havoc this might entail when such huge quantities of water are diverted to sustain grain production? Perhaps, this is the primary reason for championing the Rs 5,60,000-crore inter-linking of rivers project, which is enthusiastically supported by the President and the former Prime Minister. But the fact cannot be wished away that the project is riddled with human and environmental issues, besides economic, which might spill over to the political aspect as well.

India is heading towards a "hunger trap", and the country is no more facing the "problem of plenty". The depleted FCI godowns, thanks to the mindless export, are testimony to this. That the country is no more producing enough foodgrains to make them really cheap is well-known. As per the data given by the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, the per capita food availability is just about 70 per cent of the daily norm of 500 gm.

The bountiful South-West monsoon had set in a mood of complacency among the agricultural fraternity because of a record rice harvest. The country is already in for a shock on the rabi harvest of wheat because of scorching March temperatures, 5-6 per cent above normal, which resulted, on an average, in 30 per cent less yield per acre.

In Punjab and Haryana, it was a distress harvest, nearly three weeks in advance of the normal date, and never before in the history of wheat cultivation in these two States — the "wheat bowl" of India — had so much grain arrived for sale at the Khanna mandi, the biggest grain market of Asia, by mid-April, the time of <243>Baisakhi.

With a new government in place in New Delhi, the temptation might run high again to commence grain exports. Traders already have bought five lakh tonnes of wheat from the fresh harvest and await a policy directive from the Government.

The global wheat demand is on the upsurge. With China, the largest consumer of rice, willing to buy 100 per cent B grade rice from Thailand at $230 a tonne, which translates to about Rs 11 a kg, it would be no surprise if big export houses, with political and financial clout and their front operators, persuade New Delhi to let them `export' Indian rice to make a "killing".

If India fails to enhance water productivity and succumbs to the temptation to export foodgrains, it may soon be in for a shock on the farm front. One must also critically examine why this country should export foodgrains produced at enormous cost to its environment — soil degradation, dried aquifers, polluted groundwater and vanished biodiversity, all of which is the hallmark of the high input technology of the so-called Green Revolution — even as millions starve. This is an ethical and moral question for which no government can conscientiously find an answer.

If there is one lesson to be learnt from the poll results of Andhra Pradesh, it is the brick-and-mortar issues and not just the click-and-mouse rhetoric that the men and women on the street care about and, in this situation, food comes foremost.

The food export charade was part of the globalisation/ liberalisation programme, initiated first by the Congress Government in the early 1990s and taken to an illogical extent by the NDA when it came to power.

In 1999, after the Congress debacle in the elections, there was an "Introspection Committee" of the Congress; its conclusion was, unequivocally, that it was an anti-poor, but pro-rich stance in the economic planning of the Congress that led to its election debacle.

History is a slow teacher, but, surely, a definitive and a ruthless one at that. A corollary to the World Bank inspired models of economic reform is the implication that food imports may ensure food security.

In countries that are water-scarce (which India might become if it continues on the same trajectory) such a model will only lead to a "non-shining" mass reality, contrary to what the previous regime at the Centre tried to project.

(The author was a former National Science Foundation Professor, Royal Society, Belgium. He can be reached at Nair_KPP@yahoo.com)

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