India is hungrier than North Korea

[A123]

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Home to the world’s second-largest population, the country fared poorly on the Global Hunger Index (GHI, pdf) for 2017 released by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on Thursday (Oct. 12). India ranked 100 out of 119 countries on the GHI, while last year it was at 97 out of 118. A lower ranking is indicative of a higher rate of malnutrition and hunger.

Even though India’s 2017 GHI score—31.4—has improved over the years (it was 46.2 in 1992), its hunger problem remains categorised as “serious.” The rankings are based on four indicators: undernourishment, child mortality, child wasting, and child stunting. A GHI score of between 20 and 34.9 points reflects serious hunger levels; between 35 and 49.9, it is alarming, and extremely alarming if over 50.

In 2017, only two other Asian countries were more hungry than India: Pakistan and Afghanistan. The report highlights the “disturbing reality of the country’s stubbornly high proportions of malnourished children.” This pulled down the overall rankings of the south Asian region, making it the worst performer on the GHI, closely followed by Africa south of the Sahara. In fact, African countries such as Botswana (81) and Burkina Faso (92) fared much better than India, as did some middle-eastern nations like Iraq (78).

Even though India has a host of schemes to fight hunger, “drought and structural deficiencies have left a large number of poor in India at risk of malnourishment in 2017,” PK Joshi, director of IFPRI South Asia, said in a statement.

 

[Scorpion]

India is very fertile and the issue is rather economic. I happen to write a piece of research concerning the "Mother of all Grain" quinoa and its history. The outcome of my piece concludes that; when the US and European countries discovered the nutritional value of quinoa, they started to import it in huge quantities from poor countries like Bolivia and Peru and that led to almost all farms shifting from growing other corps and focused on quinoa for export only. Framers refused to sell domestically, refused to grow other corps because for them it didn't generate the revenues compare to the export where the $ was the currency for transaction. As time gone by, the people of those countries suffered malnutritions, food related diseases, death, poverty..etc. India seems to be walking on the same path now exporting to rich countries for huge sum of money goods like rice, vegetables and fruits. The solution to this issue is impose taxation on exports to balance the supplies and demand domestically.

 

[I.R.A]

India is very fertile and the issue is rather economic. I happen to write a piece of research concerning the "Mother of all Grain" quinoa and its history. The outcome of my piece concludes that; when the US and European countries discovered the nutritional value of quinoa, they started to import it in huge quantities from poor countries like Bolivia and Peru and that led to almost all farms shifting from growing other corps and focused on quinoa for export only. Framers refused to sell domestically, refused to grow other corps because for them it didn't generate the revenues compare to the export where the $ was the currency for transaction. As time gone by, the people of those countries suffered malnutritions, food related diseases, death, poverty..etc. India seems to be walking on the same path now exporting to rich countries for huge sum of money goods like rice, vegetables and fruits. The solution to this issue is impose taxation on exports to balance the supplies and demand domestically.

The problem of countries like Indian and Pakistan is misplaced priorities and non existent planning. Easy buck even if it leads to poisoning your own water has been our approach as people, and our governments never bothered. we have vast agricultural lands and rivers but we failed in modernizing and diversifying our agriculture sector ......... missing incentives and boom of unchecked real estate business has destroyed this sector, farmers in India have been committing suicides ......... but to us development means building sky scrappers only ..... improving the means of production has never been our priority nor it appeals us as step towards development.

 

[Nilgiri]

Its a big problem in India for sure, but to put North Korea numbers as credible/reliable is also frankly silly. It should be "unknown".

India has dozens of data streams to analyse and average out,....but North Korea has only the official data from the Kim Regime.

India is very fertile and the issue is rather economic.

The problem is not production anymore. It is distribution somewhat and sanitation and specific child + mother nutrition.

Essentially India can be producing 2 or 3 times what it does now and still have these aweful hunger problems, because simply the root cause is now something else entirely. A complete focus on the badly affected areas along with specific yet comprehensive solutions needs to be done. There is a nutrition strategy coming out shortly, and the 100% toilet coverage objective is coming along nicely in raw access terms (and usage is filling in behind it which is good)...so hoepfully there is concrete improvement.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...ew-national-strategy/articleshow/60380291.cms

 

[Scorpion]

Its a big problem in India for sure, but to put North Korea numbers as credible/reliable is also frankly silly. It should be "unknown".

India has dozens of data streams to analyse and average out,....but North Korea has only the official data from the Kim Regime.



The problem is not production anymore. It is distribution somewhat and sanitation and specific child + mother nutrition.

Essentially India can be producing 2 or 3 times what it does now and still have these aweful hunger problems, because simply the root cause is now something else entirely. A complete focus on the badly affected areas along with specific yet comprehensive solutions needs to be done. There is a nutrition strategy coming out shortly, and the 100% toilet coverage objective is coming along nicely in raw access terms (and usage is filling in behind it which is good)...so hoepfully there is concrete improvement.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...ew-national-strategy/articleshow/60380291.cms

I think the highlighted part in your post is relative to what I wrote earlier. Im not from India so I can not really tell you more than you know, you know better that I do.

 

[Nilgiri]

I think the highlighted part in your post is relative to what I wrote earlier. Im not from India so I can not really tell you more than you know, you know better that I do.

Yes that would portend to the "economics/incomes" you were hinting at. Some 20% of India is destitute (in international terms) still to begin with. So hunger indices ranging from 10 - 30%+ in hunger is not surprising and also largely broad economic based (remember economics covers things like sustained education/awareness and not only logistics and govt efficiency) given India became a overall food surplus/neutral country (in raw calorie available per capita) some point in the late 70s I believe.

You are also right about the effects of demand pull from other markets causing upset in local economics of food production of developing countries in general. But in India's case, there are key differences that mitigate this... massive food security legislation (that India defends tooth and nail in say WTO forums) and India's own massive population/localised logistics (that promote more in situ consumption esp of perishables, which often leads to even undercounting of the total consumption in first place)....and india food trade/food production (Esp volume wise) being negligible and not really ramping up sizeably in a trend.

Smaller developing countries are of course much more susceptible to these forces given their population and access to "homogenized" heritage style arable land/production.

 

[Nilgiri]

BTW I just remembered reading a paper way back that described how food aid to developing countries in Africa upset the local farming production drastically that it made the situation worse long term (more reliant on food aid and inability to produce food locally) because the food aid was free and in such volume (of total demand) that it undercut the local farmers. This is why I have a big suspicion to food aid programs in general.

 

[I.R.A]

The problem is not production anymore. It is distribution somewhat and sanitation and specific child + mother nutrition.

Did British ever try introducing modern farming techniques in this region? Like they laid the railways and improved the infrastructure, I think they also helped with the irrigation system? but did they ever try improve the farming techniques? I ask this because we started with what they left behind, and somehow still have this hangover, with very little improvement of our own. And how modern Indian agriculture industry is today? tilling, sowing, harvesting, storage and irrigation etc?

 

[Nilgiri]

Did British ever try introducing modern farming techniques in this region? Like they laid the railways and improved the infrastructure, I think they also helped with the irrigation system? but did they ever try improve the farming techniques? I ask this because we started with what they left behind, and somehow still have this hangover, with very little improvement of our own. And how modern Indian agriculture industry is today? tilling, sowing, harvesting, storage and irrigation etc?

Essentially British had hands off approach. Subcontinent was just captive market for them after all. Improving farming methods means you create surplus labour for industry etc and that just adds much pressure to their mercantile system based on the value add industry being back in the home country (even for unskilled level say massive textiles production).

They did improve the irrigation systems and kept a good tight ship there I have to say in many places (at least where I am from in the South according to my dad, grandparents etc and also I have seen the quality of book-keeping under British in the archives too).

In India case it was squandered after independence largely because everything got over centrally planned and wrapped in new layers of bureaucracy and control....and money siphoned away from such basic things as upkeep/maintenance at small scale to fund new grand scale projects (with no real oversight on results)....away from what would have done much more good for lesser cost (locally funded and constructed check dams etc)

Really everything agri wise stems from surface water access (without too much reliance on borewell), ability of local area to plan and respond on its scale (rather than go through central admin hoops) and access to adequate credit, education and markets for farmers.

India has been lacking for long time in all these departments...but with the internet revolution and also better long overdue reforms, there is some change, and it is driven by which states have succeeded relative to others in some measure too (because of sustained good administrations in some cases and piecemeal coincidence in others). For example in many areas now, there is greater availability to pool capital technology by renting it like an uber (but for farm machinery). It is profitable for the investor/provider and also for the farmers. This adds pressures to the labour chains so India then needs more non-farming jobs etc....but this is going to be quite a long term thing to watch and there will be setbacks and successes all over. Which govts can mitigate the former and expand the latter over time will do the best politically. Lets see.