UPSC Mains Daily Answer Writing (29-11-2022) - GS 3


Questions

Q1. India produces more food, wastes more, and has a higher rate of hunger. In India, evaluate the many causes of harvest and post-harvest losses. Also, what actions has the government done to lessen food waste in the nation at various points along the agricultural supply chain? (150 words)  10 marks

Q2. Minimum Support Prices for crops have been around for a long time. Discuss their significance and the challenges they bring to the agricultural sector. (15 marks)


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Model Solutions

Q1. India produces more food, wastes more, and has a higher rate of hunger. In India, evaluate the many causes of harvest and post-harvest losses. Also, what actions has the government done to lessen food waste in the nation at various points along the agricultural supply chain? (150 words) 10 marks

Model Structure
Introduction:

  • According to the Food Waste Index Report 2021 published by the United Nations Environment Programme, 50 kg of food is thrown away per person every year in Indian homes.
  • Nearly 40 per cent of the food produced in India is wasted every year due to fragmented food systems and inefficient supply chains, a figure estimated by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Main Body
Pre harvest Causes of Food wastage:

  • Diseases and infection: There is damage in the field before harvest due to biological and biotic factors such as weeds, insect pests and diseases.
  • Use of excessive fertilizers and nutrients make crops naturally sick and lead to minimum yield or complete loss of yield.
  • Failure to harvest is due to economic reasons such as low market price at the time of harvest and high labor cost.
  • If a crop matures when the demand is low for the production, some producers opt to leave the crop in the field as the returns do not justify the cost of harvesting and transport.
  • Due to environmental conditions and faulty agricultural practices.
    • Pre-harvest conditions and actions in the field can indirectly lead to losses at later stages in the Supply chain and manifest into post-harvest losses.
      Post-harvest causes of food wastage:
  • Inadequate storage facility with the FCI: Lack of adequate or proper storage facilities is resulting in rotting of foodgrains. The godowns of FCI are 92 to 93 percent full. The government has acknowledged that the country wastes Rs 58,000 crore worth of food items every year due to lack of or poor storage facilities.
  • Farm to consumer losses were found due to harvesting, threshing and storage at farm and wholesaler level. This included use of improper threshers, delayed harvesting and improper storage practices.
  • A large quantity of food is wasted at weddings and social gatherings in India.
  • Inferior quality of produce: Defective produce is food that does not meet the standards set by food manufacturers, restaurants/hotels, and so on.
    • Food is wasted because it cannot be sold due to inferior quality, including dark spots and decay.
  • Processing facilities: At the institutional level, barring a few exceptions, there is still barely any acknowledgment of the problem of food waste.
    Steps taken by the Government:
  • The FSSAI started a social platform in 2017 the Indian Food Sharing Alliance (IFSA) to promote food donations and stop food waste in urban areas.
  • The 2016 introduction of SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters). Creating an integrated cold chain and value addition infrastructure is one of the scheme's key elements.
  • India is also developing Mega Food Parks. They will prepare food and offer sufficient and suitable storage facilities.
    • By doing this, food will be preserved better and have a longer shelf life.
  • Automatic approval for foreign equity upto 100% for most of the processed food items except alcohol and beer subject to certain conditions.
  • “Operation Greens” was announced on the line of “Operation Flood”, with an outlay of Rs.500 crore to promote Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs), agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management.
  • Incentivizing creation of infrastructure, expansion of processing capacity and developing technology to convert raw produce into value added products.

Conclusion:

  • India needs cutting-edge logistics and supply chain training that goes beyond removing barriers on lack of proper training to professionals and entrepreneurs in the supply chain and continuously supports and updates them.

Q2. Minimum Support Prices for crops have been around for a long time. Discuss their significance and the challenges they bring to the agricultural sector. (15 marks)

Model Structure
Introduction

  • Minimum Support Price (MSP) is a predetermined price at which the government guarantees to buy agricultural produce in case the market price of a specific item falls below the MSP. It ensures that farmers get better remuneration and their input costs of production are covered.

Main Body

  • Minimum Support Prices for 22 crops are recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices under the agriculture ministry. Factors taken into consideration for MSP include cultivation cost, demand supply situation of commodity, inflation etc. It is significant because-
    • Checks rural distress and migration by giving farmers a better return for their produce.
    • Crop diversification is ensured by better MSP for pulses and oilseeds which has cascading impact on soil health.
    • Checks inflation and protects farmers from price shocks.
    • Ensures import dependency is checked because better MSP is an incentive for farmers to grow more crops.
    • MSP also helps protect farmers and agricultural sector from shocks like covid pandemic, demonetization, GST reforms, twin balance sheet crisis etc.
  • But the intent of a scheme is one thing and its implementation is another. In this context, MSP has few negative aspects also due to challenges like-
    • Ineffective implementation as per Shanta Kumar committee which revealed that only 6-8% farmers availed benefits of MSP.
    • Majority MSP is given for rice and wheat to fulfill requirements of the public distribution system which makes MSP like a procurement price and not linked to domestic prices.
    • Highly skewed MSP regime is focused only on two crops and other crops are neglected which not only promotes monocropping, but is bad for soil health and water table.
    • Economically unsustainable as the cost of procurement and maintenance in godowns is very high for the government and FCI.
    • Many times, inflation is overlooked while announcing MSP.

Conclusion

  • Though MSP is important as a shield for farmers, it needs to be rationalized along with other reforms like implementation of e-NAM, Shanta Kumar committee recommendations and price stabilization fund among others.
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