Food Shortages: Will they be back ?
No doubt for improving the infrastructure government needs to acquire farm land. But by neglecting the reforms in the agricultural sector and focusing only on industrial reforms, are we bringing back the specter of famine and food shortages?
When some members questioned the lengthy time frame, the explanation provided was that the land being purchased was agricultural land and that there were several procedural formalities involved in converting agricultural land into no agricultural use.
While the manner in which farmers are treated when land is acquired is certainly an issue, there is also a need to examine the whole matter of acquiring agricultural land in other contexts. While improving infrastructure—roads, highways and expressways etc are important and they would require acquiring land, there needs to be a re-look at how agricultural yield can be increased and land under cultivation can be increased. While probably nothing can be done to increase the size of land holdings since the notion of population control is all but forgotten, increasing mechanization, investment in irrigation infrastructure a policy regulating cash crops that are often grown for short term profits at the cost of long term food security needs to be regulated.
The emergence of private buyers of food grains as against the erstwhile monopoly of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) Mandis has been heralded as an unmitigated boom.
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Tags: agricultural reform, farm land, article, economy, farmers
