COVID-19 AND FOOD SYSTEM RISKS IN INDIA
BY PROFESSOR RAMESH CHAND
With COVID-19, the world is in an unchartered territory of policymaking where global, regional and domestic value chains are at risk. It is heartening that amid this pandemic, agricultural activities and food supply have shown remarkable resilience in most countries. Nevertheless, Professor Ramesh Chand argues against complacence and discusses various risks and strategies to cope with COVID-19 based on duration and severity, and draws lessons from India experience. – Devesh Roy, series co-editor and Senior Research Fellow, Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)
COVID-19: A global pandemic
Amravati :People shopping in the market with mask to contain spread of Coronavirus, Photo Credit Shutterstock By CRS photo
COVID-19 has struck the world at a time when experts were already deliberating on the need for a paradigm shift in the agri-food sector that could address the broader challenges of sustaining the humanity. Researchers have strongly emphasized promoting dietary changes toward more healthy, safe, nutritious, attribute-based, ethnically diverse, and therapeutic food. On the supply side, increasing emphasis has been placed on sustainability, environmental footprint, and climate change. COVID-19 is expected to lead to a significant shift in dietary preferences, adding new dimensions to the food system thinking.
The immediate effect will be felt on supply chains, with global supply chains expected to face more serious disruptions than the local supply chains. This may lead to food shortages and crisis in some countries and bring biosecurity to the centre stage. Additionally, international trade is likely to be subjected to more rigorous sanitary and phytosanitary standards to serve the goals of both food safety and geopolitics.
Impact on global food systems
Notwithstanding some general predictions about the impacts of COVID-19, the world seems to be entering an unchartered territory of policy making with uncertainties. There are forecasts of unprecedented economic depression, deflation, large-scale unemployment, shrinking income, and increase in poverty. While all these concerns are important, the most serious concerns are health and sustenance of food supply. It seems ironical that the latter has not yet attracted adequate attention of the global community, which if remains, can have serious consequences.
It is heartening though to observe that in the midst of serious disruption caused by this initial wave of coronavirus pandemic agricultural activities and food supply have shown remarkable resilience in most countries. However, this should not make us complacent as food systems can get more vulnerable to the effects of pandemic in the medium and long run. Therefore, it is important to discuss the risks and strategies to cope with various stages of COVID-19. One approach to do this is to assess the response and strategies based on duration (short, medium and long run) and its impact on producers, consumers and economy.
India’s responses to the coronavirus outbreak
Like other countries, India resorted to a country-wide lockdown on March 24, with stringent measures to limit movement of people. Some states in the country added further restrictions to the national lockdown. This created serious concerns around disruption in food supply chain from hinterland to urban centres and surplus to deficit regions. Amidst this crisis, it was important to ensure regular delivery of essentials such as milk, fruits, and vegetables. Furthermore, from an agricultural perspective, the timing of the pandemic was alarming as this is the season when rabi (winter) crops are harvested in the country.
A mechanism was thus created to closely monitor the ground situation and take prompt measures to respond to the emerging situation. The first step taken by the government was to treat agri-food production and marketing as essential commodities, thereby granting exemption to farm workers and allowing movement of farm machinery and farm produce. This was followed by the decision to keep agricultural markets open. At the same time, ground staff were equipped to issue passes to genuine producers, labour and intermediaries. Several awareness efforts were undertaken to follow precautions such as social distancing, sanitization and use of masks. As a result, India could ensure smooth supply of food to its large population of more than 1,300 million despite the nation-wide lockdown that has lasted several weeks. Nearly 60% economic activities came to a halt after the lockdown. This had put daily wage earners and their families and low-income households at the risk of starvation. India quickly responded to this potential risk through relief measures that involved free distribution of 5 kg staple food (wheat and rice) per person per month for three months along with some quantity of pulses. This was in addition to the already provisioned regular supply of same quantity of wheat and rice at a highly subsidised price of Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg, respectively. These measures together constitute 80% of the staple food consumption of a household and help mitigate the risks of hunger caused by loss of income for a large section of vulnerable population.
Lessons from India
With its rapid response mechanism, India can provide some effective lessons on coping with COVID-19 crisis and sustaining food security. Some of these include: (i) establish a mechanism to monitor ground-level situation in rural and urban areas (ii) allow food sector certain relaxations and waivers (iii) instruct ground staff to comply with relaxation and lockdown norms (iv) ensure close coordination between central- and state-level functionaries and (v) provide advisories to farmers from institutions like Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through Krishi Vigyan Kendras; and (vi) maintain and raise allocation under food safety net.
Major crops of rabi season in India are wheat, gram and mustard. Their marketing is subject to regulations under Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act that require produce to be sold in designated places and in a prescribed manner. Market arrival of wheat and other crops often create glut and crowding in marketplaces during a few weeks following harvest, April-May being peak time. States are relaxing APMC rules and creating new options for farmers to sell their produce directly to private traders to reduce rush in regulated markets. Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are also playing a laudable role in a lot of places. Harvesting and marketing of rabi crops is progressing very well. Some products have suffered due to inadequate labour and absence of market and transportation. These include floriculture, mango, grapes and a few other perishable horticultural commodities. Supply of dairy products, which is dominated by producers cooperatives, has been uninterrupted. This highlights that along with the government, institution farmers’ institutions like dairy cooperatives and private sector play a vital role in ensuring seamless flow of food from farm to fork. This also underlines the urgency of implementing the reform agenda that calls for liberalization of agricultural marketing by removing various restrictions on agricultural trade within the country.
The country is now planning for the next crop season i.e., kharif, which is dominated by paddy/rice. Paddy in India is transplanted manually, and many states depend on migrant labour for this. In case, inter-state movement of population is not normalized by end of May, there could be some shift in areas away from paddy. We do not foresee shortage of seed, fertilizer and other inputs for the next kharif season as the lockdown is likely to be relaxed shortly in phases from. However, it will not restore the situation to normal. Requisite protocol and standard operating procedures have to be followed, beginning from the farm-level to the delivery end point. Supply chain may not work smoothly, and work in these areas will require new norms. This will raise the cost of production and distribution. More reliance needs to be placed on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for farm extension, and on e-commerce for distribution of input and disposal of output.
A long way ahead
This may not be the end of story for COVID-19. Experts indicate the present spell may be followed by another more serious spell of infections which is more critical for the long run period extending beyond the month of October 2020. This will require more systemic changes and strategic decisions. Prolonged coronavirus disease will pose a huge threat to value chains and supply chains due to higher risks of disruption and cost. This will put pressure on increasing self-reliance and even self-sufficiency in food as against reliance on trade with others. This has the potential to raise cost of food and cause adverse effect on farm income and can also present critical challenges for agricultural research and development to fix new priorities.
At the macro-level, COVID-19 is likely to affect agriculture and non-agriculture sectors differently. While on one hand, the non-agriculture sector is projected to follow a V-shaped or W-shaped recovery, the agriculture growth rate, on the other hand, will follow moderate deceleration in the medium- and long-term without sharp decline or sharp increase in output. Also, there is a fear of serious overall price deflation in the non-agriculture sector, whereas the agriculture sector is likely to witness temporary episodes of price spikes at the consumer-level and price crashes at the producer-level, with some upward pressure on price trends due to enhanced cost of production and distribution. This will require expansion of food safety network and distribution of subsidized food, particularly to poor and low-income households to ensure their food security.
Prof. Ramesh Chand is a renowned Indian agricultural economist and member, NITI Aayog. The analysis and opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author.
This blog has been published as a part of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), South Asia, blog series on analyzing the impacts of the COVID-19’s pandemic on the sub-national, national, and regional food and nutrition security, poverty, and development. To read the complete blog series click here
