Food security remained firmly at the top of the agenda this weekend as Asian politicians and financiers gathered in Madrid for the Asian Development Bank meeting. “In the medium to long run, the answer is to become self-sufficient in food grains”, Indian finance minister P. Chidambaram told Emerging Markets. “As long as we import commodities, and the global prices are high, we are importing inflation.”
The Indian government aims to boost rice production of rice, wheat and pulses by 10 million tonnes, 8 million tonnes and 2 million tonnes respectively, through the National Food Security Mission and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana support scheme for farmers, Chidambaram said in an interview. “But the results will not be visible in a year – only over a period of time. As long as there is a mismatch between supply and demand there will be pressure on prices. That is the pressure that is being felt today.”
Separately, Chidambaram said yesterday that India might suspend trading in food futures if parliament demanded it as a means to combat speculators.
His comments come amid growing outrage across India at remarks this weekend by US president George Bush, who suggested India’s growing wealth is part of the reason for the food price problem. Prosperity “increases demand”, Bush said on Saturday. The Indian middle class is bigger than the US population, he said, “and when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.”
In Madrid, the senior civil servant in Chidambaram’s ministry, finance secretary D. Subba Rao, said that food security measures were vital to prevent “one hundred million people in Asia being forced back into poverty” by the crisis in supplies and prices.
Subba Rao was addressing a governors’ seminar where the ADB’s new long-term strategic framework was presented. China’s vice finance minister Li Yong told the gathering that agriculture is a “top priority” for China. ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda acknowledged that food and agriculture issues were not specifically-stated priorities in the bank’s new strategic plan for the next 12 years – but claimed that the bank would address these issues through provision of rural infrastructure provision and via various forms of financial assistance.
UNCTAD secretary general Supatchai Panitchpakdi, head of an eminent persons group whose report guided the ADB’s Strategy 2020, said the bank would tackle food issues through its mandate to bring about “inclusive growth” in Asia. “We are trying to re-engage the Green Revolution in Asia”, he said.