{"id":38480,"date":"2023-12-05T11:42:46","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T06:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=38480"},"modified":"2025-04-23T11:26:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T05:56:47","slug":"state-of-food-agriculture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/state-of-food-agriculture\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Food and Agriculture 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>What are Agri-Food Systems?<\/li>\n<li>About the State of Food and Agriculture 2023 Report<\/li>\n<li>Highlights of the State of Food and Agriculture 2023<\/li>\n<li>Improvements in Agricultural Productivity in India and its Adverse Impacts<\/li>\n<li>What is the Policy Environment in India and Issues with it?<\/li>\n<li>What can be Done to Help Farmers in India?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in News?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 &#8211; a report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has revealed the massive hidden costs of the global agrifood systems, which exceed an astounding $10 trillion.<\/li>\n<li>In middle-income countries like India, these costs constitute nearly 11% of the GDP, which manifests as higher poverty, environmental harm and health-related impact (undernourishment, unhealthy dietary patterns, etc).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What are Agri-Food Systems?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Agrifood systems have three main components:\n<ul>\n<li>Primary production: It includes food from agricultural and non-agricultural origins.<\/li>\n<li>Food distribution: It links production to consumption through food supply chains and domestic food transport networks.<\/li>\n<li>Household consumption: It is the downstream outcome of functioning agrifood systems, subject to varying degrees of demand shocks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About the State of Food and Agriculture 2023 Report<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>This edition of the report introduces the concept of the hidden costs and benefits of agrifood systems and provides a framework through which these can be assessed.<\/li>\n<li>The report aims to initiate a process that will better prepare decision-makers for actions to steer agrifood systems towards environmental, social and economic sustainability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Highlights of the State of Food and Agriculture 2023<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The report highlights massive hidden costs of the global agrifood systems, exceeding an astounding $10 trillion.<\/li>\n<li>The report blames unsustainable business-as-usual activities and practices for these escalating costs, pointing to a need to transform agrifood systems.<\/li>\n<li>One way to do so is to shift to multi-cropping systems that have the potential to protect farmers\u2019 well-being, improve nutritional outcomes for the communities, and positively impact ecological health.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Improvements in Agricultural Productivity in India and its Adverse Impacts<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>This has been achieved over the last five decades by mainstreaming monocropping systems and chemical-intensive farming practices.<\/li>\n<li>The Green Revolution focused credit on inputs and marketing of high-yielding varieties of paddy and wheat on agricultural lands, which now constitute more than 70% of India\u2019s agricultural production.<\/li>\n<li>However, the infusion of seeds purchased from multinational corporations and fertilisers undermined seed sovereignty and dismantled Indigenous knowledge systems.<\/li>\n<li>This trend also compromised the nutritional needs of households and resulted in adverse ecological consequences including soil fertility and excessive extraction of groundwater.<\/li>\n<li>This privatisation and deregulation of agricultural inputs also increased indebtedness among agrarian households.\n<ul>\n<li>In 2013, the debt to asset ratio of a farmer household in India was 630% higher than in 1992.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is the Policy Environment in India and Issues with it?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Under the National Food Security Act 2013, 65% of households (around 800 million people) in India are legally assured a right to food at subsidised rates through the Public Distribution System and welfare programmes such as &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>The Integrated Child Development Services and<\/li>\n<li>The Mid-Day Meal Scheme.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The procurement of food crops: It is coordinated by the Food Corporation of India (FCI), which is required to maintain a central pool of buffer stock and to procure, store, transport, and maintain foodgrain stocks in the country.\n<ul>\n<li>However, this procurement policy heavily favours rice and wheat.<\/li>\n<li>Not surprisingly, the area under cultivation of coarse grains dropped by 20% between 1966-1967 and 2017-2018.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Policies favouring investments in water-intensive cash crops: Water-intensive cash crops like sugarcane and arecanut have flourished under policies &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>Favouring investments in dams and canal irrigation (favouring sugarcane) and<\/li>\n<li>Free electricity for borewells (favouring arecanut).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What can be Done to Help Farmers in India?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A systemic shift in food regimes, from local to global value chains, is essential.<\/li>\n<li>Diversified multi-cropping systems, rooted in agroecology principles, could be a viable solution to revitalise degraded land and soil.\n<ul>\n<li>Practices known by various names locally, like \u2018akkadisaalu\u2019 in Karnataka, involve intercropping with a combination of legumes, pulses, oilseeds, trees, shrubs, and livestock.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Alternative farming systems may increase farmer\u2019s income and improve the environment.\n<ul>\n<li>For example, millets, whose yield per hectare is comparable to those of rice and wheat, are more nutritious and grow in semi-arid conditions without burdening groundwater tables.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>By redirecting subsidies, currently accruing to corporations, farmers can be paid for their contribution to sustaining natural capital, instead of incentivising them to deplete it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What is the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)?<\/h3>\n<p>The FAO is a specialised agency of the UN leading international efforts to defeat hunger. FAO&#8217;s goal is to achieve food and security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food and lead active, healthy lives.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2) What is the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY)?<\/h3>\n<p>PMGKAY is a food security welfare scheme announced by the Government of India in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It was initiated to provide free food grains to the needy through ration shops under the NFSA.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/energy-and-environment\/agrifood-systems-debt-degradation-fao-report\/article67593450.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Feeding humans has trapped the world in debt, degradation: FAO report | Explained<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State of Food and Agriculture 2023 aims to initiate a process to prepare decision-makers to steer agrifood systems towards environmental, socio-economic sustainability<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":38481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}