5 Hunger amidst plenty About half of all Indian children are estimated to be undernourished, and more than half

Box 12.5 Hunger amidst plenty About half of all Indian children are estimated to be undernourished, and more than half

of all adult women suffer from anaemia. Low birthweights (themselves reflecting the poor nutritional status of adult women) play a major role in the perpetuation of undernutrition and poor health.

There is some evidence of heightened nutritional deprivation during the (past) two or three years, a period of severe drought in large parts of the country. Over the same period, there has been an unprecedented accumulation of foodgrain stocks on the part of the central government – from about 18 million tonnes in early 1998 to well over 50 million tonnes as this book goes to press. To put these staggering numbers in perspective, it may help to think of the current stock as the equivalent of about one tonne of food for each household below the poverty line. If all the sacks of grain lying in state warehouses were lined up in a row, the line would stretch for one million kilometres or so – more than twice the distance from the earth to the moon.

While these massive food stocks are meant to contribute to the country’s ‘food security’, that objective is clearly not well-served when the stocks are built by depriving hungry people of much-needed food during drought years. Further, the current stocks are more than three times as large as the official buffer stock norms. This huge surplus is, to

a great extent, explained by the fact that the government is committed to unrealistically high ‘minimum support prices’ for foodgrains. This has boosted production, lowered consumer demands, and forced the government to buy the difference in order to sustain these artificially high prices.

The distributional effects of high support prices are not entirely clear. There is a widespread conviction that high food prices help the poor, because it is a form of subsidy to the agricultural sector, which is the main source of livelihood of a large number of poor households. But this reasoning is at best incomplete, since it is also the case that many more poor people in India buy their food on the market, and tend to be adversely affected when food prices go up. For casual labourers, migrant workers, slum dwellers, rickshaw pullers, rural artisans and many other deprived sections of the population, cheaper food would be a blessing.

As it happens, even poor farmers are unlikely to benefit much, if at all, from price- support operations. These farmers typically sell little grain, if any, on the market; instead, they tend to combine subsistence farming with labour migration and other income- earning activities.

The overall distributional effects of higher food prices can, thus, be quite adverse. A related issue is that it is not possible to sustain artificially high prices, short of destroying or exporting the surplus food. In fact, it aggravates the problem, by giving farmers mis- leading signals to the effect that they should continue growing more foodgrains instead of diversifying their crops. Sooner or later, this is bound to lead to a glut in the foodgrain market and a collapse of market prices, defeating the price-support policy, unless the intention is to accumulate large stocks indefinitely.

[O]pportunities exist today to make constructive use of the available food stocks. In particular, these resources could be used to implement social security programmes, such as employment schemes, school meals, in-kind transfers to the destitute, and an

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY ANALYSIS

expansion of the public distribution system. These possibilities have received scant attention in recent policy debates, and there is little indication that the government has anything like a coherent plan for the constructive utilization of the country’s food stocks. Instead, official policy seems to consist of postponing the problem of ballooning food stocks as long as possible.

This situation of ‘hunger amidst plenty’ is an extreme case of lopsided priorities, related in turn to sharp inequalities of political power. The government has been quite responsive to the demands of privileged farmers (the main beneficiaries of procurement operations), even boosting minimum support prices against expert recommendations. (In) contrast, the needs of the hungry millions have counted for very little in the formulation of recent food policies. The answer to this problem is not so much to undermine farmers’ organizations, which have every reason to defend the interests of their members. The need, rather, is to build countervailing power through better political organization of underprivileged groups.

Extract from J. Drèze and A. K. Sen, India: Development and Participation (2002) Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp336–340.

Box 12.5 on food policy in India depicts a human development perspective on policy. First, Drèze and Sen describe the problem and assemble the evidence. They provide data about the rate of undernutrition, low birthweight and anaemia, and the existing foodgrain stocks. Note the persuasive use of facts in: ‘it may help to think of the current stock as the equivalent of about one tonne of food for each household below the poverty line’ or ‘(if all the sacks of grain lying in state warehouses were lined up in a row, the line would stretch for one million kilometres or so – more than twice the distance from the earth to the moon.’ Second, they describe the policy content: the government support of a minimum price for food producers has meant that the government had to buy food surplus in order to maintain prices. Third, they evaluate the policy from the perspective of the freedoms of marginalized groups. While the policy has been beneficial for food producers who sell their products in markets, it has had detrimental effects on those who have to buy the food and who live on subsistence farming: they are unable to lead healthy lives and access other freedoms they might value. Fourth, they project the outcomes: if the policy of creating artificially high prices for grain continues, it becomes self-defeating. Fifth, they construct the policy alternatives: ceasing this support for a minimum foodgrain price would enable poor people to buy more food and be healthier. They propose to use the current available foodstock for imple- menting social security programmes. The criteria for assessing these alternatives are the well-being of the poor and whether they participate in the formulation of the policy that directly affects them. Will they be able to live healthier lives under alternative policies? Sixth, Drèze and Sen provide an analysis of power in the policy process. The main winners of the current food policy are the large-scale farmers because they have power over the subsistence

POLICY

farmers and rural labourers, and they dominate farmers’ organizations. But any policy alternative to solve the hunger problem in India would need to count with the political empowerment of its most marginalized groups. Finally, the analysis of food policy has been conducted for the purposes of advocacy. It depicts an absurd (but powerful) narrative of ‘hunger amidst plenty’.

Questions

12.1 Identify one policy in your country. Who is responsible for the policy

decision? How would you describe the policy process?

12.2 In the country you know best, which areas of public policy would you

say are best (and worst) managed? What are the primary private and public interests and institutions involved in each case? Can you think of ways of improving the worst ones?

12.3 Give examples of how Lukes’ three dimensions of power are manifested in the policy processes in your country.

12.4 If you know about a sector in any country, such as agriculture, forestry,

mining, ICT, health and education, describe how well you think it is functioning with respect to the expansion of human freedoms. Are there constraints that stem from poor or inadequate public policies? What policy-making institutions and stakeholder groups would or could be involved in improving sector policy and performance? What are the main obstacles, political or otherwise?

Notes

1 Initiatives such as IP Watch provide a wide coverage of issues and differing viewpoints (www.ip-watch.org). 2 This was one main point of agreement among economists and participants at the seminar ‘How Are Globalisation and Poverty Interacting and What Can Governments Do about It?’ OECD Development Centre, Paris, 9–10 December 2002. 3 One example of a growing set of human development policy analyses and methodologies is the Human Development Impact Assessment Toolkit of Trade Policy from the UNDP Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Initiative (www.nsi- ins.ca/english/research/progress/05.asp). For an analysis of the growth and distributional impacts of trade, see the Alan Winters papers, Centre for Economic Policy Research (www.cepr.org/Pubs), particularly the paper on ‘Trade, Trade Policy and Poverty: What Are The Links?’

4 A. Paterson, R. Adam and J. Mullin, ‘The relevance of the national system of innovation approach to mainstreaming science and technology for development in NEPAD and the AU’, draft working paper for the Preparatory meeting of the First NEPAD Conference of Ministers and Presidential Advisers responsible for Science and Technology, Nairobi, 13–15 October 2003. 5 For more information on ICT use in developing countries, see the LIRNEasia website at http://lirneasia.net/. Sister networks are linked to the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Economies at http://lirne.net. 6 These have been reproduced in Measuring Human Development: A Primer (at http://hdr.undp.org).

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Readings

Bardach, E. (2005) A Practical Guide to Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving, 2nd edn, CQ Press, Washington, DC

Drèze, J. and Sen, A. K. (2002) India: Development and Participation, Oxford University Press, Delhi Ferguson, J. (1990) The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depolitization and Democratic Power in Lesotho, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Hill, M. (2005) The Public Policy Process, 4th edn, Pearson, Harlow International Development Research Centre (2006) Innovation, Technology and

Science Programme Initiative Prospectus, www.idrc.ca/uploads/user- S/11616331061ITS_Prospectus_English.pdf

Lukes, S. (2004) Power: A Radical View, Palgrave, Basingstoke Sen, A. (1981) Hunger and Public Action, Oxford University Press, Oxford UNDP (2006) Human Development Report, Palgrave, Basingstoke