South Asia all set to operate its food bank

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Kathmandu, October 26:: South Asia is likely to witness the operation of its Food Bank, as the region's agriculture ministers are planning to meet in Delhi early next month to formulate the Regional Agriculture Perspective and Vision-2020.

The region's agriculture ministers would also consider the setting up of a milk grid for the region as part of the broader issues relating to the dairy sector.

As per the directives of the 15th summit in Colombo in August, this year, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has done the last critical mile in terms of putting the region's food bank scheme into operation. The idea of a SAARC Food Security Reserve was first conceived way back in 1987 with a reserve of 2,41,580 tonne of wheat and rice, but the scheme could not take off the ground. Learning from the failure, the region's leaders agreed to set up a South Asia Food Bank at the 14th SAARC Summit in Delhi in April 2007, the modalities of which were finalised at the 15th SAARC Summit in Colombo in August, this year.

The SAARC secretary general, Sheel Kant Sharma said, "The SAARC Food Bank's board met for the first time in Colombo in October 15-16, 2008 and finalised the modalities for determination of price on FoB basis, arranging deferred payments by the requesting country, exemption from regulatory duties by the releasing country and release of food stock from facilities closest to the requesting country."

The contribution by each member country to the SAARC Food Bank has been fixed, with India's share being the largest at 63.42%, followed by Bangladesh and Pakistan with 16.58% each, Sri Lanka and Nepal with 1.66% each, Maldives with 0.08% and Bhutan with 0.07%. Afghanistan's contribution is fixed at 1,420 tonne.

A meeting of the South Asia Civil Society Forum convened by the Nepal-based South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE) last week has suggested to the SAARC Secretariat the ways for simplifying the operation of the food bank.

This would be the region's second experiment with institutional food security after the failure of the SAARC Food Security Reserve due to its complicated process and hard conditions. One of the main reasons for the failure was the balance of payment crisis afflicting the region.