Community grain banks can help tackle hunger

Joseph Vackayil

Hunger has moved to the centre-stage of Indian politics in recent times with the judiciary, social activists and the media highlighting the issue in their respective fora. The Prime Minister, too, in his recent utterances, has emphasised the urgent need for attending to the basic needs of millions going hungry in the shadow of an unmanageable mountain of foodgrain.

The Prime Minister’s exhortation was further fuelled by the Supreme Court’s observation on August 19 that “it was the primary responsibility of the Central and State governments to ensure that the foodgrains overflowing in the Food Corporation of India godowns reached the starving people”.

In the background of these developments, M S Swaminathan, the renowned agronomist who pioneered the Green Revolution and steered its spread from four hectares to 400 million hectares in the 1960-70s, has come out with a viable means to tackle hunger.

Even before the Prime Minister took to his acclamations and the Peoples’ Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking justice for the hungry millions, Dr Swamianthan, inspired by Mahatama Gandhi’s statement in Naokhali that “for the hungry man god is bread”, had initiated action to bring this elusive god close to over 300 million Indians.

Dr Swaminathan, who believes in ‘local action with national and global support’, has asked the Union government to spare just five million tonnes from its 65 million tonne buffer to trigger a national movement of ‘community grain banks’ under the management control of a community grain bank society or council. The bank will have three major groups of members: entitlement group, ecology group and ethical group. Each of these will be managed by a self-help group.

The entitlement group comprises families that are entitled to the benefits of government schemes like targeted public distribution system, Antyodaya, Anna Yojana, Annapoorna etc.

The ecology group will consist of those who wish to join the food for eco-development programme. The work undertaken will be related to wasteland and watershed development, social forestry etc. Grains will be used for greening the area.

Members of the ethical group will be entitled to free access to foodgrain and other categories of available foods and will belong to groups like pregnant and nursing mothers, infants, school children and old and infirm persons.

The grain bank council can also be empowered to act in emergencies to provide immediate relief to people affected by natural calamities. It can also meet the challenge of seasonal slides in livelihood opportunities.

It is estimated that about one tonne of foodgrains would be sufficient for a family of five for a year. The suggestion is that, to begin with, grain banks, each with 200 tonnes of wheat or rice or other locally acceptable staples like ragi (finger millet), jowar (sorghum), bajra (pearl millet) and maize could be established in ‘hunger hot spot’ villages.

Remote areas, with poor communication, like the desert areas of Rajasthan, and hill, tribal and drought-affected areas can be given priority in starting the grain bank movement.

With five million tonnes of foodgrains supplied from the central stocks, in the first five months 25,000 grain banks can be established. These can be sustained through local purchases and from continued government support. The grain banks can be successful in states which have the political will and social infrastructure because they are to be linked to the rural godowns scheme and function under the overall umbrella of the Gram Sabha and operated by local self-help groups. This will ensure their relevance to local conditions in addition to involving low transaction costs.

Dr Swamianthan sees Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh with their own schemes ideally suited to kick-start the grain bank movement. “These community grain banks can be the entry point to not only bridging the nutritional divide, but also for fostering social and gender equity, ecology and employment. They can be equipped to cater to emergencies like cyclones, floods, drought, earthquakes”, he says.

Dr Swamianthan will be presenting this concept in a wider and global perspective at the 17th International Congress on Nutrition in Vienna. The M S Swamianthan Research Foundation studied the philosophy and geography of food insecurity and identified its five major dimensions. These are: availability of food, which is a function of production; access to food, which is related to purchasing power; absorption of food in the body, which is determined by the availability of safe drinking water, environmental hygiene, primary health care and primary education; vulnerability to transient hunger, which is related to natural and man-made calamities and disasters; and sustainability of production which is influenced by the extend of attention given to the ecological foundation essential for sustained advances in production.

It has also prepared a food insecurity atlas of India in collaboration with World Food Programme, which reveals that every state in India has its strengths and weaknesses in relation to the aforesaid five dimensions. The atlas reveals that non-food factors like livelihood and income-earning opportunities, health care facilities, education, sanitation and environmental hygiene are as important for food security at the level of every individual, as factors relating to the availability of food grains in the market and access to clean drinking water.

Thus, hunger, which is a luxury for the rich, is the essence of existence for those without access to food. In the past there were hungry millions because there was no food. Now there are hungry millions in spite of overflowing granaries, because food cannot be reached to the needy. Here, community grain banks cna play a major role.