Food Security

Food Security - the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

There is lack of food security because of following main reasons:-[1,2,3]

1 – Loss of Agricultural productivity / below optimal productivity.

2 – Loss of interest in farming because of the uncertainties involved like, no rains etc.

3 – Loss of produce in supply chain, transportation and shortage of Cold Storages.

4 – Non-Availability of the means of further processing/value addition in a nearby distance.

The key investment areas are Poly-Houses/Poly-Tunnels, Organic farming, Cold Storages & Chiller Trucks, Value-addition Units (Eg- Pulp Extraction & Paste Making), Agricultural Heavy Equipment and Crop Insurance.

High yielding seeds are the solution of below optimal production, but institutes like PUSA are already doing a good job in R&D. And the current government has also made their distribution better. Poly-Houses, raise productivity to a large extant. Even 1degree C rise in temperature reduces crop productivity by 9-10%, which can be avoided in a poly House. Poly-Houses can be equipped with drip Irrigation, so they can function in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas.

In recent times, there has been a rapid increase in awareness about organic vegetables and fruits [4]. Chemically fertilized produce lacks nutritious contents present in the organic produce, because chemical fertilizers increase the quantity by compromising on quality, and their taste is all not as good as the organic ones. So in this way, chemical fertilizers are just filling empty stomachs but not providing nutrition, which leads to malnutrition and diseases like kwashiorkor.

Because a considerable amount of produce gets spoilt in warehouses and during transportation, investment in infrastructure (like cold storages and chiller trucks) can be done where required (western, central and southern India). Post GST, truck movement will become smooth, so long distances can be travelled within the shelf-life period. Also in case of prior knowledge of a potential wastage, it can be converted into something like paste, or pulp extraction etc (ketchup from tomato). But there is lack of proper regional distribution of such units that can do value addition.

Also, because of the middlemen, farmers get petty money for their hard-work. So this lack of market connectivity is worth investing, by making contracts with farmers of a village to produce a particular thing and buying it at a pre-contracted price.

At the time of harvest, agricultural heavy equipment & tractors can be leased out to farmers [5], as there is a heavy movement of such equipment from Punjab to other regions at the time of harvest.

Challenges – Difficulty in gaining trust of Farmers, as they have often been cheated in the name of high quality seeds, so they may not trust a new concept like poly-house, which will also be costly for them (even after the government subsidy). So First, we will have to gain their trust by having a trial run with a farmer of that very village. Seeing the crop succeed, other farmers will also follow. Their trust can be won by helping them get their crop-insured through the government scheme.