Jul 31, 2009
A new report released at India’s national capital revealed that the food situation in the country has worsened with increasing food prices and unregulated food distribution system, largely controlled by corporate players. About 214 million people reportedly go hungry and 57 million children remain undernourished in the country.
New Delhi: As food prices soar to the skies, the poor are eating less and the government has camouflaged this brand of inflation by combining food with other commodities like steel and metals whose prices are falling, said environment activist Vandana Shiva here on Thursday.
She also released a report on the causes and cures for the deepening hunger and malnutrition crisis in the country.
The report has been put together by her organisation Navdanya, which is involved in preserving biodiversity, farmers’ rights and promotion of organic food.
Advocating the case for food sovereignty and a universal public distribution system, she said these two were the key to controlling the food crisis the country faces today.
“India has emerged as the capital of hunger with 214 million people being denied the right to food. This is more than sub-Saharan Africa.
Fifty-seven million children in India are underweight because of lack of adequate nutrition. This is one-third of all underweight children in the world,” she said.
Holding the government responsible for manipulating the situation, Dr. Shiva said: “While the government claims that inflation is negative, the reality is that food prices have gone through the ceiling with a 50% to 100% increase in most food items between 2003-08. Also, food prices continue to rise as the food system is increasingly controlled by corporate players in procurement and retail.”
She said economic reforms had seriously undermined food security and that at the level of production there had been promotion of export-oriented cash crop at the cost of food crops.
“We are spending more to starve our people. A non-sustainable, corporate-driven production model that threatens the small framers threatens India’s food security. Small framers produce more food than large farms and if they are destroyed, they will go hungry and the country will go hungry.”
She warned that if we destroy the ecological capital of land, biodiversity and water, there can be no food security.
“The future of food security lies in the promotion of organic farming, which provides more nutrition per acre, and the promotion of a decentralised universal public distribution system,” Dr. Shiva said.
