Post by ananyomukherjee on Aug 16, 2012 15:14:48 GMT -5
Food Inflation and Agricultural Swaraj Rahul Goswami
The price of a basket of staple foods has become crippling in rural and urban India. The government’s response is to favour agri-commodity markets, greater retail investment and more technology inputs. For food grower and consumer alike, the need for genuine farm swaraj has never been greater.
The retail prices of staple foods rose steadily through 2010, far exceeding in real terms what the Government of India and the banking system calls “headline inflation” and exceeding the rate of the rise in food inflation as calculated for the country. These calculations ignore the effective inflation and its increase as experienced by the rural and urban household, and they also ignore the considerable regional variations in India of a typical monthly food basket.
Moreover, from a household perspective an increase in the prices of food staples is not seen as an annual phenomenon, to be compared with some point 12 months in the past. It is intimately linked to job security, net income, the pressure on the food budget given competing demands of medical treatment, education and expense on energy. When real net income remains unchanged for over a year or longer, the household suffers a contraction in the budget available for the food basket, and this contraction - often experienced by rural cultivator families and agricultural labour - is only very inadequately reflected by the national rate of increase in food inflation.
An indicator of the impact on households is provided by the price monitoring cell of the Department Of Consumer Affairs, Ministry Of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. This cell records the retail and wholesale prices of essential commodities in 37 cities and towns in India. Data over a 36-month period (2008 January to 2010 December) for the prices of cereals, pulses, sugar, tea, milk and onions reveals the impact of the steady rise in the Indian household’s food basket......
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