AN INTRODUCTION TO FOOD SECURITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

An Introduction to Food Food Security and Climate Change-Debesh Bhowmik
Edited Volume-FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA-by Biswajit Chatterjee and Asim Kumar Karmakar
(Regal Publication,NewDelhi,2012,Rs1880/-,H.B.)

This volume contains 21 articles presented and selected from the seminar on Food Security in Netaji Nagar College,Kolkata,organised by Bengal Economic Association in 2010.
The contributors are emminent scholars and economists like Prof.Biswajit Chatterjee,Prof.Raj Kumar Sen,Prof.Sb Ranjan Misra,Dr.Pranab Kumar Chattapadyaya,Dr.Dhirendra Nath Konar,Dr.Joydeb Sarkhel,Debes Mukhopadyaya,Dr.Asim Karmakar,Dr.Purba Chattpadhyaya,Dr.Subir Mukhopadhyaya,Dr.Dhiraj Kumar Bandopadhyaya,Dr.Debesh Bhowmik,,Dr.Srijit Chowdhury,Anath Bandhu Mukherjee,Debjani Roy,Dr.Suvrangshu Pan,Ramanuj Goswami,Suhas Roy,Dr.Swapan Kumar Roy,Dr.Biswanath Mandal,Anusuya Kar,Bhajan Chandra Barman,Tapan Purkait.

This volume covers wide range of cause of food insecurity, problem of food distribution,management of food food security,nutrition,right to food,private market on food,food security bill,water crisis,climate change causes food insecurity etc with some recommendations of policies.

I have produced the effects of climate change on the security of food vis-a-vis NAC report on food security.

In brief,my paper summarises that World Food Summit (1996) defined food security as “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” .It has three components (a) availability of food in the market; (b) access to food through adequate purchasing power; and (c) absorption of food in the body .Food security includes  (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.  Famine and hunger are both rooted in food insecurity. Food insecurity can be categorized as either chronic or transitory. Chronic food insecurity translates into a high degree of vulnerability to famine and hunger; ensuring food security presupposes elimination of that vulnerability. Food security is a complex sustainable development issue, linked to health through malnutrition, but also to sustainable economic development, environment, and trade.

Food security and climate change are deeply interconnected .The changing temperature and rainfall patterns and increasing carbon dioxide level will undoubtedly have important effects on global agriculture and thus on food security. One long-term field study documented  a 15% decrease in yield for every 1 °C increase in mean temperature.The recent IPCC Fourth Assessment Report indicates that climate change will have significant impact on crop production and water management systems in coming decades.

Environmental Protection Agency (1989), The study of Rosenberg and Crosson (1991), Reilly, Hohmann, Kane(1994), US Department of Agriculture(1995), (Reilly,2001), Nordhaus and Boyer (2000), Tol(2002), Hitz and Smith(2004), Parry and Fischer(1995), The Stern Report of UK Government(2006), and  Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) concluded from their researches  that there is a inverse association between yield of agriculture and the temperature.

Indian climate is dominated by the south-west monsoon, which brings most of the region’s precipitation.  Agricultural productivity is sensitive to two broad classes of climate-induced effects—(1) direct effects from changes in temperature, precipitation, or carbon dioxide concentrations, and (2) indirect effects through changes in soil moisture and the distribution and frequency of infestation by pests and diseases. Rice and wheat yields could decline considerably with climatic changes.

Sanghi, Mendelsohn, and Dinar (1998) calculated that a 2 °C rise in mean temperature and a 7% increase in mean precipitation would reduce net revenues by 12.3% for India as a whole. Agriculture in the coastal regions of Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka is found to be the most negatively affected. Small losses are also indicated for the major food-grain producing regions of Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, West Bengal, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh are predicted to benefit – to a small extent – from warming.

Diversity farming is the single most important modern technology to achieve food security in a changing climate.The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)  adopted agriculture by

“- changing varieties/ species to fit more appropriately to the changing thermal and/or hydrological conditions;

- changing timing of irrigation and adjusting nutrient management;

- applying water-conserving technologies and promoting agro biodiversity for increased resilience of the agricultural systems;

- altering timing or location of cropping activities and the diversification of agriculture.”

UPA-II government  proposed Food Security Act which ensure 35 kg of rice and wheat to all the Below Poverty Line (BPL) households in India at Rs 3 per kg. If the government were to universalise PDS in the fiscal 2010-11, keeping 80 per cent coverage and BPL-CIP, the total annual food subsidy required (Budget Estimate 2010-11) would be Rs 97,815.9 crore (1.48 per cent of GDP). Since the present food subsidy stands at 0.84 per cent of the GDP, the additional annual food subsidy required would be around 0.64 per cent. Even if we calculate using Antyodaya-CIP and 100 per cent coverage, the total annual food subsidy required (BE 2010-11) would be Rs 147,500 crore (2.23 per cent of GDP). The additional food subsidy required as a share of GDP, even in this estimate, would not go beyond 1.39 per cent.

The National Advisory Council recommended an increase of 10 kgs per household.  It proposes that all ‘socially vulnerable groups’ including SC/STs would receive 35 kgs of food grains per household at Rs. 3 per kg in the districts/blocks. Others (not defined) would be guaranteed 25 kgs ‘at an appropriate price’. The NAC states that in urban areas, eligible households (again identified by undefined planning commission criteria) would get 35 kgs of food grains at Rs. 3 per kg. The NAC wants to extend ‘comprehensive nutrition support schemes for infants, pre-school children, school children, welfare hostel students, adolescent girls, pregnant women, street-children, homeless, the aged and infirm, differently-abled, those living with leprosy, TB and HIV/AIDS etc.,’. It also  aims to work towards ‘measures for enhancing agriculture production, PDS and procurement reforms, ICDS reforms and maternity benefits, community kitchens and destitute feeding’.