Magic with Millet: Towards enhancing India’s Food security

http://farmersforum.in/policy/magic-with-millet-towards-enhancing-indias-food-security/

The National Food Security Act (NFSA) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) have provided a major shift in alleviating poverty strategy. Nevertheless, the poverty status of the country is alarming. Even with the growth rate at 8.5 per cent, poverty and consequent malnutrition makes for 37 per cent (some data states 41.0 per cent) of Indians living below the poverty level. A staggering 43.5 per cent of Indian children under five remain malnourished.  Higher agricultural growth with sufficient food production can undoubtedly be useful in combating poverty and malnutrition. To implement the NFSA, the country needs is to expand its allegedly leaky public distribution system (PDS). There have been pre-Budget suggestions for Conditional Cash Transfer (CCF) and food coupon system but there is little media focus on the neglected but highly potential bio-resource of coarse grains or millets in India.

India has a rich resource base both in terms of farmers’ varieties and laboratory produced cultivators of millets in India. While, admittedly it may not be much of a panacea in the Indo-Gangetic plains, millions of poor Indians in the hostile arid and semi-arid zones of India would stand to benefit. The Constitution invests every Indian with the Right to Life, irrespective of cast, creed, religion and geographical locations. Proper management of coarse grains resource can ensure that such right along with other supplementing measure is actually being ensured. This is easier said than done because India with a population of 1.21 billion in 2.4 per cent of global space is besieged with problems related to management of natural resources with which the country is richly endowed.

With eight per cent of the global biodiversity, India has a rich genetic resource base that, if appropriately managed and used, could be a great asset. The agro-biodiversity in India offers enormous opportunity to adopt a strategy for ensuring food security for one of the fastest growing human population. Regrettably, an analysis of post-Independence agricultural policy, including the PDS, proves that the momentous strategy adopted during the era of Green Revolution and beyond had failed to respect India’s agro-bio-resources: one such area of utter neglect is millets.

Millets are grown in arid, semi-arid or rather marginal conditions of soil fertility and moisture. Nevertheless, they are considered as rain fed crops and could be of great help to large localised population as staples or even reserve crops in marginal areas. They are a proven source of energy and protein for millions of human population, additionally providing fodder for cattle population. Unfortunately, a steady decline in millet growing areas in the post Green Revolution period, without any intervention of the authorities, has led to it almost disappearing from the food list.

Millets have a short growing season, a low moisture demand and can play a significant role in a mixed cropped system. Characteristic ecosystems and climatic condition conducive for growth of three major groups is given below (Table 1). Adapting to both irrigated and dry land farming, millets can be a rich source of food and fodder in the years of scarcity and serve as “suitable candidate for famine reserve food.” It is stated that adaptation of simple agronomic practices with timely sowing, right varieties, manuring and weeding and mixed cropping could even more raise the yield by 200 per cent or even 300 per cent (Ghosal & Krishna, 1995). Because of localised production, largely in backward areas, millets did never play the role of major community in the market. The geography and history of Millet has been dealt by Krishnaswamy (1938) focusing the role of Africa and India as its homeland. Incidentally, India still acts as the major producer of millets in today’s world.

Types of millets and their varietal diversity

Millet crops belong to eight major genera of plants in India, namely, Eleusine, Coix, Sorghum, Pennisetum, Setaria, Panicum, Paspalum and Echinochola but are more easily recognisable by their popular names.

The diversity of varieties provides an assemblage of genetic characters and opportunities to be used in the desired condition of stress. Seven varieties of Finger millets are known in Karnataka alone, which are drought and pest resistant. Another five varieties are known from Garhwal Himalaya, which provide higher productivity with variable duration for cultivation days ranging from 130-150. Likewise, Sorghum is known to have five varieties in Andhra Pradesh, in the same state at best four varieties of Finger millet are also known to exist. Varietal diversity is also recorded for Foxtail millet in Garhwal Himalaya, each with 150 days duration.

Unfortunately, deprived of positive policy support and emphasis on rice and wheat, there has been a decline in the number of extant varieties as well as areas under millet cultivation. Farmers in Andhra Pradesh, a Deccan Development Society Survey reveals, believe that hybrid seed of rice and wheat has led to fast decline in the traditional millet cultivation. Changed food habit of the young generation and dearth of organic manure like cow dung are believed to be the other contributing factor. It is interesting to note that in the National Conference on Agro biodiversity (February, 2006) held in Chennai under the aegis of National Biodiversity Authority not a single paper focused on millet.

Semi arid and arid zone

The arid and semi arid zones of India are recorded as 0.31 million sq. km spread over Rajasthan (61 per cent), Haryana and part of Punjab (nine per cent), Gujarat (19.6 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka (10.4 per cent). Extremes of temperature, severe and frequent drought, low relative humidity and high wind velocity characterise the arid and semi arid zone. The region has undergone changes in the area where canal irrigation has been introduced but, otherwise, remains under ecological stress. The area under millet in comparison to rice and wheat can be seen in Table 4.

It is believed that millets can offer the most assured food security in the zone. Table 5 provides a comparative analysis of nutrient content available in rice, wheat and millets.

Conservation and management

The apathy of the Ministry of Agriculture has been well evidenced but the increasing awareness in the Civil Society Organisations has led to some welcome change. Of these, the setting up of millet in India Network spread over 17 states in perhaps the most welcome. In February 2010, MINI focused on the urgent need to create space for India’s millet-based agriculture in the 12th Financial Plan (2010-11), as a part of celebrating the Year of Biodiversity, when strong support was rendered by 153 members of CBOs, 53 Scientists, 26 Physicians and Nutrition Experts, 22 Members of the Parliament, 16 Presidents of Panchayats.[1]It may be noted that even without proven support, India contributes 33 per cent of total millet production, others being China and eight countries from Africa. Out of 31,875,547 tonnes production, India’s contribution stands at 10,610,109 tonnes but there is scope to produce much more.

It is interesting to note that 17 kharif hybrids and 15 rabi hybrids of Sorghum have been released of which seven were released at the national level. Again, at least 24 hybrids and varieties of Pearl millets are found suitable for India. Similar efforts can be seen in the development of 28 varieties of ‘Ragi’, 12 varieties of Foxtail millets, nine varieties of Kodo millets, five varieties of Proso millets, nine varieties of little millets and six varieties of Barnyard millets have been released, each with different attribute between 1986-2003 (Elangovan et. al., 2009). The question is: How much of such an impressive array of potential wealth has really been used to ensure food security and poverty alleviation. This is in spite of the money being spent on All India Coordinated Research Projects on Pearl Millets and Small Millets.

Noting steady decline in coarse cereal production, a centrally-sponsored scheme, called “Integrated Cereal Development Programme in Coarse Cereal based Cropping Systems Areas (ICDP-Coarse Cereal) has now been launched. It is expected to include frontline demonstration, assistance to farmers for improved package of practices, supply of quality seeds and resource conservation technologies. Currently, 25 millet manufactures and suppliers are known to be operative. MINI is urging the government to promote millet cultivation and provide an incentive of Rs 5,000 per acre for cultivating millets. Since millets are grown in an area of maximum 20 million acres in India, the incentive percentage will not exceed Rs 1,000 crore; compare this with fertiliser subsidy of Rs 1,40,000 crore provided by government in 2010.[2]

It is of interest that India, the host country for International Centre for Agriculture Research in the Semi-arid Tropics, has an institute under Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGAIR), ICRISAT. ICRISAT has global mandate on Pearl millet and is working for decades on the development disease resistant, yield increasing cultivars; it has significantly contributed towards combating ‘Downy Mildew’ disease, parasitic witch weeds and insect pests. A molecular map of Pearl millet has also been prepared.

With all its past history of the role it has played for centuries in offering staple food to millions of people in ecologically hostile areas, millet must be accorded the highest priority in terms of denominating it as the major cereal crop along with rice and wheat. Making millet available through proper marketing and making it a part of the PDS should also be on top of the agenda. Popularising millet-based food has been something that CSOs had engaged in but it is only serious policy support by the government that can make it a value-added product for India’s food security. Budget 2012-13 should be a good time to make a beginning.

References:

1. (www.milletindia.org/letters/letter_Financeminister_ Feb16_2010.pdf)

2. Times news network, June 24, 2011

Elangovar, m. et.al. 2009 sorghum and millet Genetic resource management. p 21-55 in agrobiodiversity hotspots:access and benefit sharing (ed. s.kannaiyan). narosa publishing house, new delhi, chennai, mumbai, kolkata.

Ghosal, anjali and onkar krishna. 1995. millets of india. navadanya. new delhi.

Gulati, ashok and Ganguly, kaveri 2010 .right to Food: Getting it right. economic times, new delhi; december 4, 2010

krishnaswamy, n. 1937. Geography and history of millets. curr. sci., 7-355

Empowerment and Public Service Delivery in Developing Asia and the Pacific

http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/pub/2013/empowerment-public-service-delivery-asia.pdf

Foreword

I feel very privileged to be associated with this report, which will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank in New Delhi in May 2013. The general theme of this meeting is “Development through Empowerment,” and the report makes a fine contribution toward an understanding of that path to development. The particular subject matter of this study, ably led by Shikha Jha and Anil Deolalikar, is the critical importance of essential services in helping the expansion of human well-being and the reduction of poverty and deprivation, and the part that empowerment of the people can play in facilitating this process. It also discusses the distinct ways in which empowerment of people can be advanced and the kind of results we should expect to see as a result of these constructive changes. 

The report is self-contained, with a good statement of the questions asked and the conclusions reached, and it is not necessary for me to re-state here what the authors have discussed very well in the body of the text. However, there is a case for placing the report in a wider perspective. In understanding the background to this enquiry, it is important to appreciate (i) the nature and richness of the idea of empowerment, (ii) the direct and indirect roles of essential services in promoting human empowerment, and (iii) the respective roles of the state and the market in development through empowerment.

Empowerment is integrally related to the expansion of human freedom—the freedom of people, often very disadvantaged people, to be able to do and achieve what they want (and have reason to want). Empowerment can, thus, be seen as enhancement of human capability. But it concerns particularly those capabilities that give a person an ability to catch up with others, and in particular, not be dominated by people in more privileged positions, because of wealth, social standing, or political entitlement.

Consider Aneurin Bevan’s famous comment, “The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away,” which Michael Foot separated out for special attention in his biography of Bevan. The remark may initially appear to be mysterious, but it is an eloquent articulation of the fact that the underdogs of society may seek power not so much to use it over others, but to make sure that others do not have power over them. To have power without using it is quite different from not having that power at all. This idea fits generally with the capability perspective, which points to the importance of having the freedom to do something one has reason to value (whether or not one actually chooses to do it). And yet the idea of empowerment goes beyond that. The language of power can be very effective in drawing attention to the conflicting aspects of interdependences involved in social, economic, and political relations. For example, having the power to make public authorities, or private businesses, pay  attention to the concerns of the underdogs of society is a quintessential example of significant empowerment. And on this subject (among others), the report has much insight to offer.

Empowerment has importance of its own in advancing human freedom and well-being, but it also helps in the consolidation, advancement, and improvement of essential services, which in turn expand human wellbeing and freedom. This report is much concerned with these linkages. The contribution of empowerment to the successes of development works indirectly as well as directly. An extensive expansion of the capabilities and freedoms of people (especially less privileged people), and the corresponding enhancement of their powers, are part and parcel of the development process, and there is no need to look for indirect connections in acknowledging the importance of this basic recognition. The ability of people to lead a long and fulfilling life, to be educated and numerate, to avoid suffering from disease and from uncared old age, and other such fundamentally important freedoms must, with good reason, be seen to be constitutive parts of human development. 

While those direct connections are easy to appreciate, there are also more complicated relations in understanding the different ways in which human empowerment can also contribute to expanding the delivery and use of essential services, like schooling, medical care, social amenities (such as sanitation, water supply, and, of course, environmental preservation). There is a two-way relationship here. To illustrate, just as schooling and medical care contribute to empowering people, people with clearer understanding and articulate voices, and strengthened by good social organization can demand with energy and force more—and better—public services. There can be many indirect connections in enhancing people’s power to make strong demand for more facilities, and to insist on good quality of the services offered. And empowerment may reflect itself also in arrangements for monitoring what is offered to the people.

These diverse—but interrelated—connections are particularly worth investigating, both because of their importance and because of their complexity. This report has a great deal to say on these connections: how they work, and what can be done to enhance their vigor and reach.

The third issue concerns the role of the market in providing many of these services, when they can be incorporated within a profit-seeking framework. However, sometimes this becomes difficult to do, because of barriers to successful marketization, which economists have studied for a long time, involving absence of competition, presence of “externalities,” the importance of indivisible “public goods,” and asymmetric information affecting the relations between buyers and sellers. The motivations of private firms, seeking profits in an aggressive way (e.g., the steps taken by health insurance companies to exclude patients with previous records of serious illnesses or proneness to particular ailments) can also clash fairly comprehensively with fair and just provision of services (in this case of medical services).

There are further issues of instrumental use of markets, even when the planning and support for the services come from the state. The state can deliver some services directly, and often has reason to do so, but in other cases the process of state support for these services (e.g., for schooling or medical care) can make use, to varying extents, of the market mechanism. For example, in providing nutritional support, the state can either provide food to people in kind, or provide income support to the poorer people, leaving them to buy food from the market, with the help of their enhanced cash position. Similarly, alternatives to state-run schools include selfreliant private schools, or private schools that are made to accommodate a certain proportion of non-fee-paying pupils, or a proportion of pupils who have publicly-given vouchers that they can use to go to one private school or another.

There is, thus, a large cluster of difficult choices that have to be faced and addressed in deciding on the right public–private mixture in the provision of essential services, including important issues of efficiency and equity. The report has probingly investigated many of these decisional problems. The choices link very extensively with the role of empowerment of people in making these services available and effectively usable. The terrain of development strategy studied in this report is quite central to the approach of development through empowerment. We have excellent reason to be grateful to the authors of this far-reaching and enlightening report.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen
Thomas W. Lamont University Professor
and Professor of Economics and Philosophy
Harvard University

Modified extended households: Co-residence, headship and household resource management in the context of labour out-migration in rural Nepal

ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the notion of co-residence, headship and resource management of a household has been modified by the phenomenon of labour out-migration in Nepal. The concept of household is largely used in the studies of home economics, resource management, livelihood and family care. In general, a household is built upon family members or a combination of family and non-family members, which is originated from the institution of marriage. Traditionally, household is considered a co-residential unit, operated by a household head that takes care of day-to-day resource management and primary needs of its members. However, the notions of family-based, co-residence and management of resources by a functional household head are challenged by various living arrangements, livelihood opportunities and changing modes of production that are created by the phenomenon of labour out-migration in the recent times. Based on a survey, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions carried out in a village in eastern Nepal, the chapter argues that households are not restricted to the conventional boundary of living-together. Like resident members the non-resident members also have a great influence in household resource management and act as a household head from distance, which has modified the meaning of ‘house-hold’. We perhaps need to understand it as ‘modified-extended-household’ where a household acts as an arena of resident and non-resident members engaged in continuous interaction and communication for the wellbeing of its members.

The book is available at:
http://www.wageningenacademic.com/mansholt12

Nepal leads in women advancement index

Overall, Nepal leads the South Asian markets with an overall score of 55.0 and a high proportion of women in the workforce (92.0). Bangladesh and Sri Lanka follow with overall scores of 45.5 and 43.8 respectively, while India (38.0) and Pakistan (23.0) round off the lower end of the spectrum.

http://www.masterintelligence.com/view_report/index_of_womens_advancement/asia_pacific/2013/South%2BAsia

After the MDGs: Hunger, food and nutrition security in the post-2015 development framework

http://www.ifad.org/events/madrid/index.htm

As the international community counts down 1,000 days to 1 January 2015 – the target date for meeting the Millennium Development Goals – experts and advocates around the world are already building a framework for development and poverty reduction beyond the MDGs. That effort continues this week with a high-level United Nations meeting in Madrid, capping the latest in a series of thematic consultations on the post-2015 global agenda.

Hosted by the Governments of Spain and Colombia, the Madrid meeting is about hunger, food and nutrition security – issues that are closely aligned with IFAD’s goal of enabling poor rural people to overcome poverty. Co-leaders of the event include the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme, together with IFAD and the Rome-based non-governmental organization Bioversity.

As a point of departure for the post-2015 framework, participants in the consultation have already established a set of core principles relating to food security. They are committed, for example, to seeking an end to hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition within a generation. They also recognize that reaching such an ambitious goal will require sustainable economic growth and human development, an emphasis on opportunities for marginalized groups and a comprehensive global approach that is tailored to local needs.

‘The tools they need’
From IFAD’s standpoint, inclusive and sustainable rural development is one of the keys to realizing this vision. Some 70 per cent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and most of them are engaged in small-scale farming. As drivers of economic growth, food security and environmental preservation, they have the potential to transform the future.

“I have seen the ability of poor rural people to transform their farms, their lives and their communities in Bangladesh, Haiti and Zambia and many other parts of the developing world,” IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze said at a recent seminar on the future of food security.

To spearhead such a transformation, rural communities must be able to harness science and technology, build on local and indigenous knowledge, and gain access to markets and market incentives. In addition, they must be in a position to increase the production of nutritious foods and cut post-harvest losses, which currently consume up to 40 per cent of the food crops produced in sub-Saharan Africa. All of this is especially critical in an era of droughts and other shocks resulting from climate change, which can lead to poor harvests and recurrent food crises.
IFAD’s experience has shown that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to increasing food security in rural areas, because local conditions vary widely. Instead, the most effective approach is to empower poor rural people with the skills, knowledge and resources they need to improve their own livelihoods – both on and off the farm – and leave poverty behind.

“Our job is to give poor rural people the tools they need, and to create the conditions for them to be able to benefit from the very real opportunities in agriculture,” Nwanze said.

Addressing inequality
Empowerment is particularly essential for the most disadvantaged segments of rural societies, including women, youth and indigenous peoples, who face obstacles posed by social and economic inequalities. Addressing these inequalities, and thereby enabling inclusive growth, will help to ensure a strong foundation for post-2015 development for the following reasons:

•  The advancement of rural women is a prerequisite for sustainable development in general and rural development in particular. Women represent a majority of the agricultural labour force worldwide. When they are economically and socially empowered, they become a potent force for change. Evidence shows that when women earn money, they are more likely than men to spend it on food for their families. Overall, giving women equal access to land and resources would reduce the number of hungry people in the world by an estimated 100 to 150 million.
•  Today’s generation of young people is the largest in history, comprising 1.2 billion individuals between 15 and 24 years of age. Approximately 85 per cent of this population lives in developing countries. But many who were born in rural areas are leaving to look for work and income elsewhere. Investing in rural employment opportunities for these young people is key to enhancing agricultural productivity, boosting rural economies and reducing rural-to-urban migration.
•  Indigenous peoples account for 5 per cent of the world’s population but 15 per cent of the population living in poverty. About a third of IFAD-supported projects and programmes work with indigenous peoples in some 35 countries, where they are often the poorest of the rural poor. With the emergence of strong indigenous peoples’ movements, countries such as Nepal and the Philippines are now recognizing and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples within the framework of national unity and development.

In the end, universal food and nutrition security will depend largely upon the prospects of some 500 million small farms whose crops already feed much of the developing world. “The need to grow more – and to grow more effectively – is primarily a need of smallholders,” said IFAD’s Nwanze. “These women and men need to be able to grow more and sell more at better prices.” It’s a message that IFAD is carrying to the consultation in Madrid.

Agriculture development strategy row : Ministry assures stakeholders of talks

The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives ( MoAC ) has assured associations, which are in opposition to the drafting process of the Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS), that their concerns will be discussed with the new minister.

Farmer associations and civil society have accused the government of keeping them aloof even after assuring that a broader discussion would be held on the proposed draft.

“We (the ministry) have given the issue due priority and will be discussed with the new minister,” said ministry spokesperson Hari Dahal at an interaction here on Friday. Currently, MoAC is without a minister.

Dahal said if the ADS is made similar to the Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP), it is worthless as similar kind of vision and strategy will not address the agriculture sector’s woes.

With the Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP) failing to yield desired results, the government is working on ADS that is expected to supersede APP by 2015.

ADS, being drafted under the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) assistance, will outline detailed programmes for the next 10 years, in which potential projects for investment by the private sector and donor agencies will be identified.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the Finance Ministry, which had assured broader discussion with all stakeholders, Krishna Poudel, who represents the civil society, said there were no sign of holding discussions. The Finance Ministry had assured them that the issue would be discussed with both the finance and agriculture ministers and also with the ADB.

Around Rs 160 million is being invested for ADS drafting. “It’s not a question of cash, but a question of the country’s agro future which has been taken so lightly,” Poudel said.

Echoing Poudel, NGO Federation Nepal President Netra Timilsina demanded inclusive participation of stakeholders in ADS drafting. The drafting process started in April last year and is scheduled to be completed 2012-end. “The drafting process should be transparent and come as an independent draft in favour of the country’s agri sector and farmers,” he said.

Prem Dangal, secretary-general of the All Nepal Peasants’ Federation, said ADS is being prepared at a time when the country is concentrating on the peace process and constitution drafting processes. “APP’s validity is until 2015, and ADS being prepared four years before has some reasons to point out,” Dangal said, adding that the proposed ADS reflect liberal agriculture policy and in the context of Nepal. “As all the processes, methodology and content of ADS is not correct and is against the interest of the country’s farm sector, we appeal to the government to immediately stop it.”

http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/05/05/headlines/Agriculture-development-strategy-row--Ministry-assures-stakeholders-of-talks/353457/

After the MDGs: Hunger, food and nutrition security in the post-2015 development framework

To spearhead such a transformation, rural communities must be able to harness science and technology, build on local and indigenous knowledge, and gain access to markets and market incentives. ...

http://www.ifad.org/events/madrid/index.htm