India's Policy Pathway to a Food System

Discussion Paper

‘Game changing’ policies, actions & initiatives of the Government of India that shaped the path for a sustainable Food System

Backdrop

The background to this paper is the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 (UNFSS) and a review of the 'game changing' interventions that were identified and documented in the five theme documents prepared for this Summit. In turn, it triggered a recap of the various policy actions taken by India in developing its current day Food System. It was seen that many of the initiatives taken in India have been along the lines that fulfil the criteria laid down by the UNFSS. 

The UNFSS has defined three primary criteria to prioritise ‘Game changing’ policies, actions & initiatives across the identified action areas.  These criteria are Impact potential at scale; Actionability (taking into account politics, capacity, costs, tools); and Sustainability (including delivering beyond 2030). Further, it suggests ‘game changing’ solutions should support towards gender equity, empowering youth, and create synergies. 

The concept of 'Food System' - the complex web of activities involving the production, processing, transport, and consumption of food - is about adopting a system approach to how we think and act in relation to food. Note, that while the Food System is inherently linked with agricultural activities, it does not include all of agriculture.

War Games with COVID19

The vaccine to end all vaccines, or something like that, could start rolling out for the public-at-large in just a matter of months. This could be seen to bring relief ... fingers-crossed …  from becoming an inadvertent host to this coronavirus. 

Yet, it will be more appropriate if the vaccine is not perceived as a personal condom to safeguard selected individuals from COVID19, but is seen as the mainstay of a program to eradicate the virus.

There is a fine distinction between a personal prophylactic against disease and achieving population scale immunity to stop the spread of a disease. Enmasse, entire populations or around 65 to 75 per cent as the scientists tell, must be inoculated (and in quick-time) to rid us of COVID19. 

Start-up Rural India, after Covid19

Most of rural India witnessed an unseasonal reverse migration of its able bodied manpower, who had to return perforce fearing prolonged economic duress. In the backdrop of the Covid19 pandemic, this movement from urban centres to home villages, was undertaken in defiance of a nationwide curfew. 

As this virus spreads its reach, it is quite evident that the risk of disease is heightened in localities with a high population density. When working in cities, these workers (termed migrants), tolerated crowded and squalid living conditions, usually in illegally built building blocks and slum areas that do not even pretend to have basic norms. Typically employing themselves in blue collar jobs and semi-skilled tasks, often as informal labourers, this workforce by now would understand that they are safer in the more open expanses of rural India.

Computing a Graded Exit from Covid19 Lockdown

The Covid-19 lockdown required a cessation of all non-essential physical interaction, so as to minimise the transmission of the novel coronavirus between humans. 

Governments all over, want to curtail the rampant spread and recurrence of the virus that mainly transfers via respiratory droplets, needing physical proximity between its victims. Indirect transmission, by way of fomites, is not fully documented but any community spread would mean as much. A graded ending of the lockdown is needed.

Covid19 Safety for Agri-markets in India

Life can only be sustained with food, and food supply is dependent on agricultural trade, which is routed through wholesale markets (mandis).

Typically, the operations in mandis involves crowds and close quarters working practices. This, in the age of COVID-19 raises some concerns. Yet, the mandis must function to maintain supply of agri-produce.

To keep the agri-markets safe, a few basic suggestions are listed. If readers have other ideas, please feel free to add in comments.

What Next, after India's Lockdown Ends!

India’s country-wide lockdown is to end in 10 days. There are some who prefer to err on the safer side and suggest the special curfew be extended, while others hope the inconvenience be ended once and for all.

The 21-day lockdown period (from March 25) is a week longer than the recommended 14 days for isolating infected individuals; presumably, the government had taken cognisance of the possibility that the first week would see non-compliance and disruptions before the larger population would settle down and observe the restrictions in the subsequent two weeks.

Lessons from Coronavirus could help Reform Humankind

The COVID-19 virus is a tough story to wrap your head around and so many questions are asked. Where and why did it originate, how did it turn pandemic, are we over-reacting, why is it so much more dangerous than tuberculosis, which is an ongoing pandemic and still kills 1.5 million each year.

The one clear take is that this new virus and the panic-demic, has spread like wildfire thanks to a dense and interconnected world. Budget airlines hastened its reach, and modern day social & electronic media were prompt in spreading its infamy. And our human world is still shaking, hard !

Prepare to Spread the COVID-19 vaccine

The COVID-19 virus is showing all indications of disrupting every individual’s life habits. While social isolation is largely voluntary so far, the fear of the disease is also coercing some to ostracise others who may show related symptoms. The helplessness factor has also initiated a blame-game of sorts, with a few even allocating this corona virus a nationality. Some people are seen to discover religion anew, and many others have displayed acts of kindness, reported from around the world.

This raging pandemic has left everyone focusing on one hope, to ‘dampen the curve’ of the infected. The idea is, to buy time, so that local healthcare networks can ably cope with the numbers expected. Sadly, that means that a lot of pain also abounds, and it is most unfortunate doctors are had to resort to triage – selective treatment of the ill – due to high load on the medical system in a few regions.

The Farm is Humankind's first Solar Powered Factory

Agriculture is most commonly correlated with the act of cultivation (and herding, catching, harvesting) and a few other field activities, carried out by agricultural serfs. It is also mostly linked with food security concerns. However, farming is the heart of the agricultural value system, a value system that not only ensures that humankind and their livestock gets fed (food & fodder), but has also evolved to provide feedstock to industries.

Agriculture has a unique place in the primary economic sector, as its output can be directly consumed (as in milk, meats, fruits & vegetables) and also service the demand of industries (as in cotton, leather, medicinals, chemicals, processed foods, and more). The other main primary sector is mining, where the harvest of natural resources (eg. ore, crude, coal, etc.) has to necessarily undergo transformative processes before it can come into gainful end-use. Like how cotton cannot be worn unless converted into cloth, and oilseeds have to be processed for oil before it is consumable.

FACE2FACE - Partnerships 'tween private & public sectors can drive excellence

Answers - Capt Pawanexh Kohli, former CEO of NCCD & Chief Advisor to DAC&FW. He was knowledge partner & member of the Committee on Doubling Farmers Income and is conferred the title of Professor (Post-harvest Logistics) by the University of Birmingham.

Questions - Ramesh Kumar, veteran business journalist and author of Naked Banana, 10000 Km on Indian Highways and more. His penmanship is also held at the US Library of Congress and he is a well-known evangelist of India’s logistics & supply chain operators. 

Excerpts from an extended dialogue between Ramesh Kumar and Pawanexh Kohli – about recent developments in cool logistics, his exit from NCCD and more...

Farm Productivity is not an End in Itself!

Heard at a recent lecture, the expert recommendation that India should direct greater resources for raising the field level productivity of crops, to alleviate two core concerns: the food security needs of the nation and to improve incomes for farmers. 

As someone who might have believed in these platitudes till a few years ago, I think it is imperative to set some records straight, and offer a more nuanced picture.

While one cannot ignore the 'general sense', it should be understood that productivity in itself is not a 'silver bullet', and except at individual enterprise level, such focus is in many ways contraindicated.

Stop Food Loss to Counter Climate Change

Artificial refrigerant gases cause global warming... and so do decomposing gases from wasted food

India has the world’s largest footprint in cold stores. Recent estimates indicate that over the last few decades we have created 130 million cubic metres of refrigerated warehousing space. Most importantly, 97% of these happen to be users of natural refrigerant gases – in effect this is the world’s largest collection of users of ammonia based refrigeration. This is not a petty matter, as most of the developed world has cold stores that deploy artificial refrigerants. Unlike ammonia, these artificial fluids - Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) - either caused Ozone depletion or are negatively impacting Global Warming.

In Europe alone, reports indicate that almost 50% of their food chain refrigeration is using such gases with a thousand times higher global warming potential (GWP) than CO2. Ammonia on the other hand, extensively used in India, has zero GWP.

High Technology in Agriculture

Use of technology in agriculture is normally interpreted as technologies that go into on-farm machinery. However, there are many more high-tech applications, involving various sciences, which have come into regular use in agriculture.

Drones are used in farming for various reasons

For example, India has a program called CHAMAN which uses satellite based remote sensing information or geo-informatics to manage crop forecasting. High tech systems, that use overhead Drones, chemistry labs and spectrograph analytics are part of agriculture and are used to manage crops and diagnose soil health. Spread your gaze wide, and you will find almost every possible form of science being applied in the field of agriculture.

Doubling of Farmers' Income

In day-to-day conversation, a number of terms sometimes lead to confusion, especially when the words involved are in disconnect from colloquial and professional context. Revenue and profit are often used interchangeably by the average person, but these terms have separate meanings, albeit profit being an outcome of revenue. Contextual clarity on terminology is important to avoid confusion of intent or action. 

Value Realisation is directly linked to market connectivity, waste occurs when connections fail.

Revenue is a synonym for income, whereas profit mean net income. Profit, in simple terms, means the income or revenue that remains after all expenses.

Increase in Farm Yields is not always Revenue Generating

Logistics Connectivity is Key to Reduce Food Loss

Food has one end-use, to be consumed...food loss or waste occurs when food left unconsumed - or, when food perishes before it could reach the market within its normal saleable life cycle.

Food loss can be reduced... only by ensuring that all the harvested produce reaches its logical end use. This means that food delivery mechanisms must also aim to counter the perishable nature of food, to extend its saleable life cycle.

Private-Public Shift, is it Worthwhile?

Eminent people from pvt sector in govt positions
Business Standard - 16 July 2013

Can the government retain domain expertise they tap onto... should they?

Occasionally, some say more frequently of late, the Indian government asks experienced minds from the private sector to take on a role with them, to help devise, advise or in some case execute some policy decisions. I am not talking of tendered projects but about individual persons, whom the government assigns certain tasks to.

I was recently touted as one of these so called experts functioning alongside senior bureaucrats, lucky to get featured with some far bigger names. In fact it was with great trepidation that I took on a leadership role as Chief Advisor on matters "cold-chain" and to help incubate the National Centre for Cold-chain Development (NCCD)... my attempt to add value as-and-where capable.

Anyone in any supply chain or logistics trade will tell you that there are no experts and that learning on their fronts is evergreen and each instance co-exists with a series of activities - a life long firefight. The grass root, hands-on experience, if applied defensively, will only lend to pat-on-call excuses, ready-reckoners of sorts, to explain failure.