The Hindu Business Line : Self-sufficiency

In the editorial “Responding to high food prices” (Business Line, June 3), it was mentioned that India and China, the two major agrarian economies, can strengthen their farm production base and the global market will have enough to feed the really poor elsewhere.

An unusual combination of robust demand growth, supply constraints, weather aberrations and rampant speculation, has led to the food shortage crisis.

The article rightly states that the food market can be made more consumer-friendly; bull markets in agricultural commodities do not last long; supply responses are currently constrained by such diverse factors as competition for acreage, global warming, water shortage and bio-fuel policies of industrialised countries.

A time-bound implementation of projects and programmes such as irrigation, input supplies, technology-infusion and farm infrastructure is essential. To maintain steady growth of the buoyant economy, what is needed is farm resurgence.

T. V. Jayaprakash Palakkad

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