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Agriculture and food security. Himanshu. Agrarian Revival since 2005. Signs of revival since 2004-05 after the worst agrarian crisis during 1997-2004 Agricultural growth rate picked up: more than 3% after 2004-5 Agricultural investment picked up Agricultural credit doubled Good monsoon
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Agriculture and food security Himanshu
Agrarian Revival since 2005 • Signs of revival since 2004-05 after the worst agrarian crisis during 1997-2004 • Agricultural growth rate picked up: more than 3% after 2004-5 • Agricultural investment picked up • Agricultural credit doubled • Good monsoon • TOT moving in favour of agriculture
Worrying trends since 2009 • Growth slowed down, less than 0.5% during 2008-09 and 2009-10 • Partly drought but are there structural issues • Not so clear at this stage due to lack of data • Cost of cultivation has gone up sharply • Terms of trade have started moving against agriculture • stagnation in agriculture credit off-take • Environmental factors
Cash cost is increasing since 2009, mainly labour, diesel and fertiliser
Was the revival real? • The movement in TOT was led by increase in MSP and speculative activity • Not enough evidence of this being demand led • Rural demand growth due to NREGA etc appears to be exaggerated • Food price inflation: structural, speculation
What to expect in future • Urea prices likely to be increased • Diesel prices likely to be increasing • Unlikely that demand increases domestically or internationally • International prices likely to stay low • Fear of high fiscal deficits likely to put pressure on agricultural investments as well as food, fertiliser and other subsidies
Food security • Malnutrition situation is not showing any signs of significant improvements • Hungama report (2011) confirms the severity of the malnutrition problem • some inference on the basis of calorie intake data • The decline in calorie intake between 2005-2010 has been the worst • The Myth of diet diversification