What’s on your platter?

 

“If there is anything we are serious about, it is neither religion nor learning, but food.”
Lin Yutang, My Country and My People

Those juicy and glossy apples stacked on the shelves makes one rush to them with glee. Have you ever wondered where do they come from? Newzealand and Washington apples in your neighbourhood vegetable market are toppling the good old Himachal Pradesh or Kashmir apples. Now you may ask “so what?” Think again!

Those apples have travelled several thousands of miles across the countries sometimes-even continents to adorn your local market. To put it plainly in Elizebeth Berry’s words, they probably get “jet-lagged”, just like people.  But the buck doesn’t stop at being jet-lagged. They are symbolic of the serious threat; importing food in India on a large-scale basis and contributing and increasing green house gas emissions locally and globally.

Apples might just be an example; there are several vegetables and fruits, which are being imported into the Indian market. The local produce is slowly taking a beating in being “non-compliant” in terms of quality. Importing food significantly contributes to “food miles”. Food mile in simple terms means the distance travelled by the food from its production site to the consumer table. This implies contributing to greenhouse gas emissions by way of transportation (sky, land or sea). This is just one of ways the local farmers and environment is facing the brunt.

According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), changes in diets, patterns of work and leisure – often referred to as the “nutrition transition” – are already contributing to the causal factors underlying non-communicable diseases even in the poorest countries. The pace of these changes seems to be accelerating, especially in the low-income and middle-income countries.

It is to be noted that the Indian “food basket” (availability of food) is shrinking drastically. Thanks to the change in land use patterns, agricultural lands are the most targeted for industrial development. For instance in a metro like Bangalore, the new international airport has contributed significantly to the raise in land prices, soaring ten times the existing rates! Most of the agricultural lands are getting unofficially converted for commercial usage.

Making way to an IT company on an agricultural land will reap more benefits and generate more economy to the country than agriculture itself. Indeed we are making a great progress but do we realise that inch-by-inch most of the agricultural lands will be lost. Who will grow food for us?

The Population Reference Bureau (PRB) states that India is expected to grow from 1.08bn to 1.63bn people by the year 2050. Agriculture sector is already marred by various problems ranging from failure of monsoon and crops and abuse of modern agricultural technologies, which is leading to farmers’ suicides. Increasing green house gas emissions and fulfilling the food demand of the country are the core issues to be tackled. On one hand India has to look at development while on the other hand tackle issues such as this, both culminating into an imbroglio of sorts.

While we are unable to sustain ourselves, we also get blamed for the current global food shortage. Recently George W Bush, President of USA, blamed the 350 million –strong middle class for the current global food shortage. It is to be noted that only 50 million people might qualify for the membership of the middle class. A majority of the population still remain below the poverty line.

The global food grain market has been shrunk by the appalling policy of bio fuels, wherein farmers are asked grow plants to burn rather than to eat. Raising fuel prices and pressing concerns for alternate fuels is driving the food market to produce “food for fuel” rather than “food for food”. This has led to rampant price speculation.

According to the book, “Stuffed and starved” by Raj Patel, in India, in just one week in February 2008, the average price of vegetables increased by 5%. Gram, sugar, mustard oil, vanaspathi and onions increased by as much as 11%, a month later. A few weeks after that the global price of rice jumped by 30% in a single day. Who is the most hurt? It’s the people who spend greatest proportion of their household income on food, which would be the poor people. The book further furnishes that the top ten percent of the country owns more than half the wealth and the bottom ten percent has less than 0.2% and this trend is increasing!

So it is high time we peek into our lifestyles and bring about small changes, which will help us as well as our future generations. As Pearl buck, an American Nobel Prize winner, points out “Food for all is a necessity and it should not be a merchandise, to be bought and sold as jewels are bought and sold by those who have the money to buy. Food is a human necessity like water and air, it should be available.”