India's Food Security

On March 16, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will present a new bill on food security. The bill will promise 75 percent of rural population and 50 percent of urban households the right to 7 kg of foodgrains a person every month, at 3 rupees per kg for rice, 2 rupees per kg for wheat and 1 rupee per kg for coarse grains to the below poverty line category of people. This bill will also insure food to children under age 14, pregnant women and lactating mothers and certain marginalized people.
As great as this sounds, from an agricultural standpoint, the government is going to start needing a lot more foodgrain. This will add increased stress on the local farmers. It is said that the government will have to increase foodgrain procurement efficiency from 55 to 60 tons.
Will this cause insecurity among farmers? Private land will be harder to procure.

Due to this added need and large population, the Indian government has been working on new technology and thus are looking to biotech crops. "Biotech cotton in developing countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bolivia, Burkina Faso and South Africa have already made a significant contribution to the income of millions of small resource-poor farmers in 2011; this can be enhanced significantly in the remaining four years of the second decade of commercialisation, 2012 to 2015, principally with biotech cotton, maize and rice," said Dr Navarro, manager of Global Knowledge Centre on Crop Biotechnology. 
Although this might fix a hunger problem, will GMO's cause other problems? This is a risk India's government is willing to take, but are they considering the long term effects it will have? 


-MAU