India's political food policy and impact on local agriculture

A look at India's food policy with recent additions like Right to Food Acts and so on seem more like political ploys in the hands of the rich policians to exploit the poor farmers.  On one side they seem to say that they would make food available at affordable rates the poorest of the poor.  On the other side, they strive to change the food habits of people so that they are dependent on Government aid.

Take the following example.  When the government is proposing 25 Kgs of food to the poor at a subsidized price, they seem to be talking of Wheat in the northern states and rice in the southern states.  There seems to be no other food grain in their description.

However, if you look at it, traditionally a lot of states consumed the so-called “coarse grain” for ages.  The government is now replacing that with Rice or wheat.  Let us look at the impact.

The government providing these grains would seem more like these grains are superior.  There is a higher demand for these and the prices would rise still more.  A higher price and demand would push the farmers to cultivate more of these crops.  The area under cultivation for coarse grains would go down further leading to the coarse grains becoming equally costly and unavailable.  Since the traditional sources are no longer available, the poor would shift to consuming rice and wheat.

Look at the irony of the entire thing.  Some of the coarse grains are nutritionally superior to rice.  For example, ragi and jowar are more complex carbohydrates and have a greater amount of protein and vitamins in them that the PROCESSED rice which is shelled out by the PDS.  Not only that, from a nutritional point of view, rice is only a source of carbohydrates.  The government's policy on Pulses is unclear.  So consuming only rice might provide the energy requirements but will not satisfy the nutritional needs.

With dwindling forests and no solid afforestation schemes in place, the tribal areas are losing their natural source of nutrition from the forests and becoming increasingly dependent on the sources provided by the government.

Till the Government looks at alternative sources of grain and acknowledges their importance in food policy, it will be tough for the government to rein in prices and at the same time provide nutrition to its people.

But the question remains, is there a political will to really make the people self-sufficient in nutrition?  Once that comes, what would be the alternatives for the political parties to include in their agendas once in five years?  Have not successive governments kept people poor by promises and dreams?