COVID - 19 Food security, shelter, livelihood security during Pandemics Part II

 Supply chains for food security during disasters

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse Foundation

My apologies to all my readers for the three week hiatus in publishing this series. My spondylitis relapsed and I was unable to work.

The current COVID 19 Pandemic triggered unprecedented Lockdowns – globally - to slow down the spread of the lethal virus.  But the economic lockdown has triggered secondary disasters with threats to livelihood and food security.

In my previous article I had made a case for state sponsored food and livelihood security till such time that a vaccine can effectively placate the Lockdown. But given the fact that incomes and revenue inflows are down – even for the governments how do we sustain supply chains economically?

Well, for starters it is time to fructify the economic survey.  The Aadhar database clearly earmarks the population below the poverty line, their livelihood, health and nutrition indices.

This data must be used to create infrastructure for food warehousing, employment database, logistics, markets, tabulate consumption patterns, install marketing infrastructure, transport, supply chains, market surveys and forecasts, and organically mitigate future disasters at the clichéd grassroots level.

India’s National Disaster Management Act which has currently been evoked empowers the Federal Government, State and District Administration, besides Taluk, and Village panchayat administrative units to take action as required. “I don't think the government is serious, except for optics” says Dr. Vinod Vyasulu, President Centre for Budget and Policy Studies in an interview to Digital Discourse Foundation.

To make supply chains sustainable Village Panchayats (Village Administrative councils) have to be in charge of food and agricultural warehousing. The idea of a behemoth Food Corporation of India to release food grains during disaster situations is subject to price escalations, hoarding, mismanagement, corruption, and is a ruin in itself, unfortunately.

Subsidies have delivered the exact opposite effect of food security thanks to corruption, mismanagement hoarding and artificial scarcity induced price escalations.

Today a centralised but dysfunctional Food Corporation of India has caused mismanagement and hoarding and today it is synonymous with food insecurity during disasters. If disasters serve well to learn lessons, then the Modi Administration will do well to execute into reality lessons learnt from previous disasters not just in India but globally. India’s legislative history after all assumes pride of place in global parliamentary heritage.  

Like Gandhiji said, India’s progress lies in the development of her villages. Envision this:

When food grains are stocked in every village, food grains, horticulture produce like vegetables, fruit, milk / dairy products, will be easily accessible to vendors for retail. Food grains will cater to the primary markets, community canteens and community kitchens at the Hobli level (Sub Taluk in the Administrative parlance).

India has incomparable agro diversity. Anyone district has a diverse 15- 20 types of green leafy vegetables, 12 types of fruits, 25 types of vegetables, 5 – 8 types of tubers, 16 types of lentils, atleast four types of dairy milk, dozens of varieties of rice, atleast one dozen variety of millets and so on. Check out our photo blog on Paddy Fields of Vietnam to feast your eyes and Soul! The advantages of local food warehousing are:

1.      Decrease in transport costs and time;

2.      Availability of fresh farm produce;

3.      Accessibility to native nutrition and agrometeorological micro nutrients;

No wastage of food grains and agricultural produce;

4.      Provides resources for community canteens and kitchens locally with culture sensitive palate pleasing food prepared by locally trained local cooks providing fresh food without delay.

Food grains will not rot. Transport costs will decrease. Not only fresh agricultural produce but local cuisine and native nutrition to suit agro meteorological traditions and micro nutrition are accounted for, thus all boxes are ticked favourably. Indeed farm distress triggered massive farmer suicides in India, (which we will deal with in another article) triggering migration too. 

Dr. R. S. Deshpande retired Director of the Bangalore based Institute of Socio Economic Change tells Digital Discourse Foundation “Yes, farm distress is certainly one of the reasons why small and marginal farmers prefer to migrate leaving their lands for cultivation under hidden tenancy to the others in the village. 

The reverse migration due to pandemic is certainly has no connection with the farm distress but more because of the threat to life and livelihood confronted by the migrating labourers in the place of their work. Most of the works under the unorganised sector were not available and hence are links had almost stopped for them which compelled the migrant workers to go back to their village”.

Community kitchens / Community canteens for disaster situations:

At the Hobli level (Sub Taluk) youth / volunteers / single women and army widows have to be trained to prepare meals for calorie calibrated food security in community kitchens; as also in delivery and logistics. Village task Forces / Volunteer Task Forces must disseminate information regarding waste management, nutrition values etc.

Volunteer brigades must oversee supply of vitamin supplements be they fruits, nuts, dairy products, green leafy vegetables or whatever. A detailed roll call for such volunteer brigades has been drafted in an article on Inter-Agency Coordination in this series on this blogpost

In urban areas caterers and hoteliers / restaurateurs must work together to serve hot, cleanly prepared, calorie calibrated hygienic vegetarian packaged food and  make it available at street corner food kiosks.

Packaging ware must be biodegradable. Bottles must be given against a refundable deposit, collected recycled for second third and penultimate rounds of usage. Community kitchen protocols necessitate healthy hygienic vegetarian food only.

The governments have to codify strict hygiene conditions for restaurants to take up community kitchens and food catering for urban areas.  The finance for these supplies must come from either CSR (in kind) or utilisation of tax revenues. Volunteers and suppliers are entitled to free food... the cycle of volunteerism has to be sustainably rewarding and self serving. 

Cargo carriers may have to re-deployed from sectors like call taxis, newspaper delivery vans etc… with their services being compensated by the consumer / end user. Yes it is a subsistence economy as against an unsustainable 9% economic growth.

Gandhian Thought is the true vision:

Going back to Gandhian thought of progress lying in village development, cynics would say the Charka economy is unreal and unsustainable. Sure it is not the most practical solution, but even a modern robust economy can have a rural flair giving progress a Gandhian perspective…

Think of villages and Taluqs having bourses and share markets not just for dairy products, but horticultural produce, floricultural sericultural produce, textiles, clay products, alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages, veterinary products, local manufacturing, local sustainable transport options, earthen architecture, rural tourism, Gastronomic industry, spice markets in the bourses and so on…

Considering India has 640,867 villages in 5,572 Taluks in about 604 districts of 29 states … 833.1 million people of India or about 68.84% of India’s population is rural. The benefit they get through self-reliance will kickstart India’s self-reliance on an unprecedented, unimaginable scale. I daresay it will bring foreign exchange markets to the rural Indian landscape.

According to 2011 census the average monthly income of a rural household is a paltry Rs. 8,931. But if we have local produce being traded locally, the economy will get an infinite boost. Let’s take just one example: Imagine if milch cows’ yield is traded in the district headquarters itself…

The employment opportunities that accrues from trade of milk, milk products, transport,  food processing, packaging, marketing, fodder, veterinary services, etc is solace to Gandhian thought. Similarly take mulberry farmers in villages … being networked with weavers and weavers in turn having access to local markets…

Agricultural seed banks to food grain warehouses, community canteens / community kitchens to mobile pharmacies, and mobile veterinary clinics, public, mental health and veterinary clinics in every village and public and mental health and veterinary hospitals, primary school to higher secondary schools, should be available in every village;  college and university degree colleges should be available in every Taluq, Post Graduate colleges/ study centres and institutes of higher learning including professional courses and technical universities should be established in every individual district in the country.

By localising supply of resources to a maximum distance of 40 kilometres, not only will supply chain management be revolutionised, but it will thrust the local village economy into super thrust connecting global tradeto the doorstep, yet in a sustainable way.

Who knew that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) would be sumptuously and consummately following Mahatma Gandhi’s vision? They say something about politics making strange bedfellows!

But Gandhian thought is indeed immortal. It was based on Gandhian thought that India legislated the Food Security Act in 2013. Check out how all the relevant legislation in India came together to mitigate food insecurity for a remote indigenous tribe here: Bewildering Biodiversity.

Though India has a Food Security Act, its disaster mitigation context is in need of tweaking for Pandemic situations. Every disaster is an opportunity to learn lessons ofcourse.  

Concluded

Links:

List of Villages/Towns: https://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/Listofvillagesandtowns.aspx

https://study4sure.com/general-info/villages/

Category: Villages in India by state or territory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: Villages_in_India_by_state_or_territory

Traditional Rice Varieties of India – Discover its magic: http://biobasics.org/traditional-rice-varieties/

Picture credit: Pixabay,

Text, research and compilation: Malini Shankar, for  Digital Discourse Foundation