Food security has attained prominence in the media, especially after the unprecedented global food price hike in 2008, at par with the other two Fs – fuel and finance. Rapid rise in population and shrinking cultivated land are the major factors to bring food security issue to light. [break]
In Nepal’s context, the issues of food security recur when agriculture production goes down and supplier countries impose ban on food exports to Nepal.
For a country where still 83 percent of the population lives and depends on agriculture for living and agriculture contribute about 33 percent to its GDP, food security has been such a vital issue that it has appeared in pretty much all the major policy documents of the government.
Nepalis are spending 59 percent of their total income on food. Of this, 58 percent and 15 percent are spend on bread and cereal and fruits and vegetables respectively.
Since food price are already high in the domestic market, any further price rise will force people to scale back discretionary expenditure and saving which will directly affect investment and economic growth.
Given the huge weightage of food in consumer spending, the Asian Development Bank has stated that merely a 10 percent rise in the food price would increase the number of people having income below US$1.25 per day by 0.6 million in Nepal.
However, the food security is not limited only to production and supplies of food but also timely and efficient distribution and ready availability across the country.
Moreover, nutrition and sustainability of food supplies for particular people are integrated under food security.
Food security is directly related to performance of the agriculture sector which is a key source of food to feed the people.
However, in the absence of proper distribution channel, financial and physical accessibility to food, nutrition level contained in the available food and sustainability of food supplies also determine the food security situation.
In Nepal, food insecurity and deficit production occurred in 14 years out of the past 23 years. It was caused not only by exceeding demand to supplies but also due to lack of proper management of supplies system to the needy and remote areas.
Problems
Limited area of irrigated land, uncertain monsoon phenomenon and insufficient availability of agriculture inputs such as fertilizers, improved seeds and lack of modern farm technology have been weakening the performance of the farming sector.
Additionally, the end of subsidy in agriculture inputs such as fertilizers and shallow and deep tube-well impacted agriculture output, which contributed to food deficit in the country.
After more than a decade, the government has reluctantly reinstated subsidy in chemical fertilizer and is going to introduce subsidy in improved seeds and organic fertilizers for selected farmers.
In sharp contrast to the condition in previous years, the government officials expect that the domestic market will enjoy food surplus of 443.1 tons this year, thanks to high yield of cereal production and lower than expected population, as revealed by the recent census report.
With the rise in cereal production, the number of people estimated to be food insecure (3.7 million people according to WFP last year) would go down this year.
However, merely increasing production doesn’t ensure food security in the country. Lack of effective market and distribution mechanism for supplies, availability of agriculture inputs and quality of available food items have also been some of the major stumbling blocks to the improvement in food security situation.
“Though the production of cereals this year is impressive, sustainability of food availability is still questionable in the absence of measures to ensure greater production in the coming days as government efforts are limited to boost farm production and vast areas of land is still dependent on rain-fed irrigation,” said Dr Hari Dahal, spokesperson at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Poverty is directly related to the food insecurity as affordability play major role to determine the access to food.
However, change in food consumption habit is leading to higher demand for rice, further putting strain in the production of one of the food items which is consumed by pretty much every household each day.
Government data shows that per capita consumption of rice has risen to 122 kg against the government recommendation of 91kg whereas per capita consumption of wheat is merely 17kg, far lower than the recommendation of 45kg.
Other issues that are putting pressure on agriculture production and food prices are increasing the exodus of Nepali youth to overseas job markets, creating a shortage of labor in the farming sector, and increasing fragmentation of land in the name of settlement through uncontrolled plotting and urbanization.
Massive internal migration from villages to urban areas has turned hilly fertile land into fallow plots and urban lands into housing colonies.
Furthermore, unregulated food aid, the poor distribution channel of state-owned Nepal Food Corporation to supply food, unreliable private sector to deliver food and exorbitant transport costs have resulted in poor supply to around 38 districts which are still classified as food deficit.
Rapidly changing food habits of rural people to become increasingly rice consumers by neglecting the traditionally farmed local grains such as buckwheat, oat, bean and barely, has also worsen the food security situation and increase the dependence on outer supplies.
Unpredictable monsoon that has been occurring due to climate change is also one of the severe problems that are aggravating the situation of insecurity as large swathes of land are still dependent on rain-fed irrigation.
Let alone luring more youth to farming, it has been difficult to retain existing farmers due to volatile price phenomenon of agriculture produces in the market which has been encouraging middlemen who are offering throwaway prices to farmers but inflicting consumers with higher prices.
Worse still, farmers are not encouraged to pursue commercial farming due to volatile prices of produces in the absence of minimum support price to stabilize the market as was practiced in the past.
Though commercialization of agriculture has been a cornerstone of the leftist parties, which have been at the helm of power more than any other party after 2006, their lofty promises have not yet been translated into tangible initiatives on the ground.
Policies
Though there have been a host of issues relating to food security at different forums, the government’s commitments are limited to lip service. This comes despite the fact that the existing Interim Constitution has acknowledged food sovereignty as a fundamental right.
In the absence of concrete government policy to tackle the deepening food insecurity, the existing food security programs supported by donors such as European Union, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and USAID are limited to small number of districts.
These interventions cannot bridge the country’s demand-supply gaps and distribution hurdles.
“We have to make food security a separate mission as even once food-secure districts are turning into insecure due to increasing population and shrinking arable land as a result of massive urbanization and growth in the real-estate sector,” said Bhola Man Singh Basnet, a food security expert.
Basnet said food security in Nepal is brewing a crisis that will explode in the coming days because even India – the key supplier of food to Nepal – is facing growing deficit of food except for some years. “We’re going to face food insecurity for more years, thanks to the visionless government policy. Despite having money, we wouldn’t be able to import food from India,” added Basnet.
Note that India has banned export of food items since the last food crisis and is also stocking reserves in view of the planned passage of the Food Security Bill, which will guarantee food to Indian households below the poverty line.
Government policies failed to support farmers with different forms of state protection such as subsidies and minimum support price for agriculture produces with the onset of economic liberalization policy in early 1990s.
“The removal of subsidy in deep and shallow tube wells distinctly hampered the expansion of irrigation, which was thought to be the centerpiece of the Tarai irrigation strategy, as envisioned by the Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP). The end of subsidy in fertilizers also was a setback in the commercialization of agriculture,” added Dahal.
Besides, being signatory to International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966), and Universal Declaration of Human Rights in (1948), among other international treaties, Nepal has an obligation to ensure freedom from hunger for its people.
The FAO’s right to food guidelines adopted in 2004 has also asked members to facilitate coordination between legal provisions and implementation of the right to food.
The 20-year APP that came into force in 1997 had envisioned poverty reduction and food security with agriculture-led growth through increased productivity, enhancing living standards through a rapid growth of farm production and employment, commercialization of the agriculture sector, formulating short-, medium- and long-term programs for agriculture development for economic transformation.
However, these objectives couldn’t be met due to halfhearted response of the government to sincerely implement them despite the fact that it had drawn complete political consensus then.
Furthermore, other crucial policies on tea, fertilizers, irrigation, coffee, bio-diversity, dairy as per the Agriculture Policy and Commercial Agriculture Promotion Policy are still waiting for implementation.
The government’s budget for agriculture sector, which was 8.1 percent of the total budget in 1995/96, has declined to a record low at 2.41 percent in 2003/04. It has increased to 3.75 percent in 2011/12.
“As agriculture remained no longer a priority sector, public expenditure on it gradually declined and reached one of the lowest in 2006-07, leading to weak performance in agriculture extension as well as research and development. Also, official development assistance on agriculture has dropped to around 5 percent, a sharp cut from 17 percent in the early 1980s,” added Dahal.
Mitigation
Despite a host of challenges to ensure food security, we do have ways to mitigate the problems. The government has to focus on a mission strategy to ensure more production and proper distribution of foods, offer attractive prices for agriculture produce with support prices, and formulate policy to use huge amount of remittances in farm commercialization with modern technology, increase irrigated land and encourage draught- and flood-tolerant crop varieties to cope with the impact of climate change.
Increasing farm subsidy to bring down the costs of production, effective use of increasing remittance in agriculture sector with the use of expertise of migrant returnees in farm commercialization and effectively enforce the land use policy to prevent increasing use of fertile land for urbanization and human settlements will also bring positive contribution to food security.
As envisioned in the 20-year APP, massive reform and commercialization of agriculture, development of self-sustaining farming culture by increasing capacity to increase food production in deficit districts, and ensuring access to inputs and technology to lessen local people’s dependence on outer supplies will be instrumental in strengthening food security in the country.
“Food aid, except in emergency periods and as short-term relief, should be delivered with a clear exit strategy so as to avoid the creation of dependency and prevent detachments of people from farming and other rural economic activities,” Dahal further suggested.
Stressing the significance of investment in agriculture for sustainable and long-term food security, key areas where such investments should be focused on are irrigation, better land management practices, research on improved seeds and varieties of drought- and flood-tolerant seeds to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather on farming.
Ghimire is the Senior Correspondent at Republica