Highlighting India’s revolutionary transformation from a food-deficient country to food-surplus in the first few decades of its Independence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that India could provide valuable inputs on other developing countries, which are keen on becoming self-reliant in food.
The Prime Minister was addressing the 32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE), which was organised in India after 65 years. When India hosted this conference for the first time in 1959, Mr Modi pointed out that it was dependent on food aid from other countries. However, now it is a food surplus.
The agricultural transformation achieved by the Indira Gandhi government in the 1970s was the biggest achievement of the country in post-Independence history as food deficits could have stoked social and political unrest. Successive governments have done well in feeding one-fifth of the human race with meagre resources at their disposal.
Though India has become a food-surplus country and it could help others, the plight of small farmers has not improved drastically. For many farmers, agriculture is yet not a profitable venture and merely serves the purpose of sustenance.
The conference, which brought to India top 1,000 agricultural economists from 70 countries, also allows India to adopt all best practices being implemented around the world to make farming profitable, which is of paramount importance for the country’s food security and social security.
In a country, where the bottom 30 per cent spends half of their earnings on food, the importance of agriculture and economic security of farmers cannot be understated. So, instead of patting itself on its back, the Narendra Modi government, which appears to have focused attention on farmers after the recent electoral nudge from voters, should engage with agricultural economists to find a solution to farmer distress and eroding soil fertility.
