Rural population has been grappling with decline in food and nutrition intake after the advent of the neo-liberal policies in the early 1990s with an estimated 80 per cent of them now having less than 2,200 calories per day, according to economist Utsa Patnaik.
"The nutritional intake data is not there. But from whatever there is, by using certain approximations, I estimate that more than 80 per cent of the rural population has slipped below 2,200 calories per day intake," she said while delivering the second P Sundarayya memorial lecture on the topic 'Agrarian Distress, Worker-Peasant Alliance and Resistance to Corporate and Imperialist Designs in India' here on Wednesday evening.
"That is what the data tell us. That is what the government's own data from the annual economic surveys and from the National Sample Service tell us. And of course, all these claims of declining mass poverty is completely false," she alleged.
The accepted average calorie requirement in India is 2400 calories per day in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. She also said that while the government was giving five kilograms of foodgrains during the pandemic period, it is difficult to estimate to what extent it reached people.
"To what extent this distribution has actually reached the people, the much-doubted 80 crores of people for whom it was intended is something we still have to find out because the entire statistical system of the country has been very thoroughly undermined over the last few years. We simply cannot rely on the data anymore because the National Sample Survey data for the large sample of 2017-18 showed the situation to be so bad," she said.
She alleged the impact of the recession induced by the pandemic has not been captured so far in any reliable data "because all the reliable data sources now have been completely undermined".
Patnaik, who retired as a JNU professor, also mentioned the role of international organisations like the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which have been pushing developed countries to cut subsidies in agriculture, and open their markets.
"The Doha Round of negotiations in the WTO, there has been an absolutely unrelenting attack on the right of developing countries to engage in procurement and distribution of food grains.
"The agreement on agriculture, which India signed along with many other developing countries, without looking at the small print, unfortunately is one of the most dishonest international agreements ever formulated," she said.
Patnaik said the US itself supports its farmers to the extent of half of the total value of its farm output.
"It's dishonest because, number one, it said that if you give price support to farmers, and MSP is price support, then that is not permitted under WTO rules because it is trade distorting. If you give cash transfers to farmers, that is permitted," she said.
"The US has less than two million farming households. It supports its farmers to the extent of half of the total value of its farm output. But that costs the US less than one per cent of its GDP. It costs it less than two per cent of its annual budget. Because these farms are huge capitalist enterprises," she added.
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