Tanim Ahmed

TWO news items in recent times should ring a few alarm bells as far as long-term food security of the country is concerned. One of the reports says the Indian government has suspended exports of all kinds of non-Basmati rice. It bears long-term significance relating to agriculture and food security.

The other report quotes the agriculture adviser, CS Karim, as saying the farmers will be given direct cash subsidies in the middle of the boro season. This has more short-term significance. The second report also features comments made by a former agriculture minister, Matia Chowdhury, who succeeded in attaining a near five per cent growth in her sector when the Awami League was in power.

It was perhaps the only reason when disparity between the poorest and richest sections of the population actually decreased. Matia Chowdhury also successfully managed to overcome the blows of a severe flood during her tenure as the agriculture minister in 1998. Thus, her comments on revival of the agriculture sector in the wake of three natural disasters are especially significant.

At a discussion meeting, organised by the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a research organisation, where CS Karim was present, she said farmers require assistance at the beginning of a crop season, not in the middle or near the end.

As agriculturalists and experts would readily agree farmers face cash crunch at the beginning of the season when there is much need for inputs in the form of seeds, labour, fertiliser and irrigation. Experts point out the need for irrigation is during the first 70 days of plantation of rice following which irrigation should ideally be reduced gradually.

In fact, as indicated by CS Karim, some farmers would have already harvested their boro crops by March-April or would not really require much assistance for irrigation in the promised form of cash subsidies of diesel at Tk 700 per acre. Presumably, this provision is part of the military-controlled interim government’s attempt to ensure a bumper boro harvest of some 17.5 million tonnes on 45 lakh hectares compared to last year’s target of 15 million tonnes.

But pending elaboration of the mechanism to provide these subsidies, it remains to be seen whether distribution of cash would also end with mismanagement and increase the hassle of the farmers, as was the case with distribution of fertilisers. Since documentation of farmers’ information is being carried out in the same fashion as that for fertiliser, it is naturally feared that cash distribution for diesel would also be riddled with problems that the farmers faced.

It should also be pointed out that while the government’s attempt to provide direct subsidy is commendable, fertiliser are not being brought under the same direct support scheme to benefit the interest of the private quarters and businessmen involved in fertiliser trade that reap most of the benefits of these fertiliser subsidies.

Another point of concern raised by agriculturalists is the widespread introduction of hybrid rice during the current season following such a decision of the incumbent regime to increase grain yield. Hybrid varieties of rice generally require a high degree of maintenance and care with more intensive application of inputs such as fertiliser and irrigation.

The hybrid varieties are also more vulnerable to temperature fluctuations such as that being experienced recently. Put together, these factors will apparently lead to a serious crisis for those who planted hybrids.

As Matia Chowdhury pointed out, fertiliser distribution is riddled with mismanagement and many farmers are still waiting for fertiliser. She indicated that the incumbents had little idea about the farmers’ needs and was inexperienced in handling the situation.

Despite its pledged support for agriculture for the boro season, the government has failed to ensure timely fertiliser distribution, even according to the government officials. Already there is widespread apprehension that a large portion of the boro crop, about 40 per cent, will not bear fruit as the required fertilisers were not provided to the farmers at the right time.

The incumbents must realise that ambitious projections and mere pledge of renewed emphasis on agriculture are not sufficient to raise food grain production. Desiring a bumper boro harvest and making forceful public announcement accordingly are perhaps easier than actually mobilising the government machinery and ensuring smooth supply of the inputs.

Given these apprehensions about a shortfall of boro production the incumbents, instead of providing the public with false assurances, should realistically estimate a possible production and initiate immediate measures to make alternative arrangements – quite predictably through imports.

This brings up the first news item regarding India’s decision to suspend exports of rice even if letters of credit were opened before the implementation of announcement of the decision. However, it is a matter of relief that this decision does not affect import of the five lakh tonnes that India would allow to be exported to Bangladesh on humanitarian grounds.

The point, however, is that although the Indian external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee, pledged this support from India at a time when Bangladesh was reeling under the damage wreaked by cyclone Sidr in mid-November last year it took the incumbents a full month to even send a team to India to survey the market. The incumbents are yet to bring in the pledged amount.

Therefore, considering the bureaucratic lethargy in initiating prudent and meaningful action, the need for the incumbents to make arrangements for meeting boro shortfall is all the more urgent and pressing. But the decision of the Indian government, similar to that of a number of countries suspending exports or imposing controls on food grain export to ensure their individual food security, is a matter of grave concern as far as Bangladesh’s long-term food security is concerned.

Given that Bangladesh is a net food importing country, the current global context of rising food prices and limited availability of food grain questions the prevailing bid towards an increasingly ‘free trade’ regime without any effective provisions for the net food importing developing countries.

In this context, the current negotiations under the World Trade Organisation relating to agriculture bear special significance for net food importers like Bangladesh. It has been the proposition of a group of developing countries – the G20 – led by advanced developing countries such as India that the developed countries should reduce their subsidies in agriculture, which deflate prices of agriculture produce so that the large agricultural producers may compete in the international market.

While India’s decision to ban exports of non-Basmati rice similar to the decisions of other large agricultural producers is prudent considering their own food security and ensuring government buffer as global food stocks gradually decline, it contradicts the position of those very countries at the global trade forum demanding reduction of subsidies to ensure a genuine free trade in food grains.

On the one hand the price of food grain increases internationally due to the gradual reduction of subsidies in the developed world that typically provided food aid to the poor countries, while on the other the large producers suspending exports and, therefore, limiting the global availability of food grain puts the poor net food importers in a precarious position.

It has been the contention of quarters championing free market economy that food sufficiency is not necessary for individual countries as they may always buy food with the money earned from other sources. Successive governments, including the current one, have followed that prescription becoming an increasingly outward oriented economy relying on export earnings for food imports. But the current situation of the international market seriously questions that proposition as countries refuse to participate in the free market.

The case in India should act as a lesson. It has always demanded, along with the other members of the G20, such an international regime that would see prices of agricultural commodities rise and allow its exporters to compete with those in the developed world. Now that the global food prices have indeed increased, the Indian government cannot lure its producers to sell their grain to the government and thereby ensure a buffer stock.

Instead the farmers are selling their product to the exporters’ agents offering higher prices. That the farmers are getting a higher price due to an appreciation of international food prices should have been received well by the Indian government but instead its reaction was to reduce the prevailing prices within the country by banning exports!

That is entirely contradictory to the country’s position at international trade negotiations that have remained stalled for years specifically for the staunch position of India and Brazil demanding drastic reduction of agricultural subsidies and export incentives by the United States and the European Union.

The decision of the Indian government is only right since it must ensure food stocks to feed its people and must initiate the necessary measures instead of claiming that the government has nothing to do in a free market economy, as the finance and food advisers of the current government have stated previously.

In this situation, special provisions for countries that are poor and net food importers must be developed under the international trade regime. In this regard Bangladesh should immediately take up this matter seriously and push for immediate incorporation of a concrete safeguard system that protects net food importers during times of crisis at the ministerial meeting of all the least developed countries scheduled to be held in Lesotho at the end of this month.

This meeting typically concludes with a set of common demands from all the least developed countries for the consideration of the entire WTO membership. There should be a strong proposal from Bangladesh, convincing the other least developed countries at the meeting, demanding that the trade forum first ensures mechanisms to ensure food security of the net importers before concluding the current round of agricultural negotiations that have only recently been revived and show signs of progressing at a rather fast pace.