ONE  FAILED MONSOON - SPECTRE OF HUNGER

Suman Sahai

The failed monsoon this year has shown us again, how fragile our food security is. If it does not rain the way it should, we have no systems in place to cope and ensure that food is cultivated nevertheless. This year in regions like Jharkhand, the fields are largely empty, covered by a light green fuzz of grass, instead of lush green paddy.

The farmers who planted rice at the time it is normally planted, have lost the first batch of seed. In many cases there is no more seed or no more money to buy fresh seed. In Jharkhand , the state government began distributing hybrid rice seed (three weeks late) under the National Food Security Mission but nobody wanted this seed for quite valid reasons. One , it was too late in the season to plant and two , hybrid rice is water guzzling and there is no water, so it will fail more spectacularly than other varieties, specially traditional varieties which have greater tolerance to water scarcity. In any case, the hybrid rice supplied by government agencies earlier, has performed so poorly , that farmers want no part of it. They would prefer to buy expensive seed from the market if they had the money, but are not prepared to plant the hybrids distributed by the government. In any case, the time to plant the rice has gone. This region, with hunger and malnutrition figures below sub Saharan Africa, will have even more hungry people this year.

Marginal states like Jharkhand are particularly vulnerable. Unlike Punjab and Haryana, they are solely dependent on the monsoon to grow food. When the monsoons come, the farmers plant rice and there is food at home . When the monsoons do not come, there is no rice and people are hungry. If no rice is cultivated this season, there will be no food till the next season in summer 2010, when a hopefully ‘normal’ monsoon will set things right.

The government has finally acknowledged that India is facing a serious drought. The country has 55 million tons of food grains in its buffer stocks, but this is not going to be enough and in any case, grain reserves can do nothing about the far larger crisis of livelihoods that will be created for a population with no options but dependence on farming and its allied activities.

When the kharif crop fails , agriculture labor and landless peasants who depend on wage labour, are hard hit. They are able to earn from agriculture operations like weeding, threshing, winnowing, packing and transporting harvested grain. When this is reduced, their earnings are reduced. Apart from wages, the men and women who do the weeding are able to collect many types of nutritious , edible leafy greens that grow throughout the season in and around the cultivated fields. The weeds also provide green fodder for their livestock. Often, the labor is paid in food grain, so an agriculture season also brings food into the homes of those who do not own land.

A shortfall in the kharif crop also means less straw for fodder, thus hitting at the survival of livestock that marginal farmers and landless peasants are so heavily dependent on. Stover and woody stems from crops like maize and linseed provide fuel for the farm family. These fuel sources will become unavailable if the kharif crops do not  provide crop residues for fuel use. One monsoon failure spells catastrophe for the poor.

An India seeking its place as a powerhouse in the global scheme of things cannot be felled by one monsoon falling short and the ever present threat of hunger. Government agencies have been talking for a long time about climate proofing our crops, buffering our agriculture systems and raising rural incomes through on- farm and off- farm operations. Not much has been done so far. The current crisis underlines the urgent need to shut down the perennial talk shop and put in place systems to support food security and rural livelihoods, because weather shocks will increase, not decrease  in the coming years.