Are we gonna starve?

There are a few things which money cannot buy, if that something covers everything we blame it on inflation.

Of late every thing is on rise, salaries, temperatures, prices, inflation last but not the least the rate at which my hair is falling, but who cares as every one is now bothered about a much bigger issue- global food price rise. It is interesting to note that US was kind enough to attribute the global food demand-supply mismatch to the growing wealth of India and China, I was rolling to laughter when I read the following article
http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/04/stories/2008050460790100.htm .
Now Dr. Manmohan Singh should come out and say that the US is the main reason behind global terrorism, global warming and a lot more other global ill-phenomenon.

I hope Bush was not complaining because every human on this face of earth has the right to proper nutrition. And even if he is complaining, who cares? I should say that India has done a great job considering the humongous price increases in crude oil, what was $80-90 per barrel has now soared to around $120-130 per barrel and if it were not to be for the rupee appreciation the inflation in India would have been racing to double figures. Thanks to the sustained exports business growth and flowing dollar reserves.

The positive effect for this is the increased spectrum of what we can call middle class in India and their increased disposable incomes and the pseudo pitfall for this is the pressure this has added on the global food demands. And what Bush commented has really left me introspecting.

India has been witnessing a steady and enviable 8-9 % growth for last few years where as world’s leading economies grew only 2-2.5%. Sadly, the farm sector, which accounts for about one-fifth of India’s gross domestic product, has been growing the slowest. The growth rate in the agricultural sector has been stagnant at about 2.3 to 2.6 per cent per year over the last decade. There is large-scale migration of farmers and farm workers to cities in search of job opportunities. So India’s agrarian crisis is much to do with an imbalanced economic growth whose fruits are unreachable for rural public.

Now, this is a serious concern, in its recent report UN has estimated a whopping 82 countries to be short of food supply, including India and China. Global food prices have soared up from 25-70% in last few months. Mostly attributed to population rise, increased incomes and decreased agricultural productivity. Now the challenge before the world is increased agricultural productivity without increasing the current arable land and water requirements (food production must be increased to feed a world population that is projected to increase from the current 6.4 billion to 9 billion. The challenge is to double world food production output by 2050 using less land, far less water, and fewer nutrients).

So when Bush or his secretary are making some comments in public, they might as well be hinting at us to look at our current capabilities and what is expected out of us.

So this might be the time for us open our eyes and see what has to be done to make India sufficient to meet the global food demands. Unless we do something serious, we are going to starve, for sure.