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FAMINE STALKS
NORTHERN INDIA
J
UST WHEN
Ít was thought that
India had so1ved its chronic
food prob1ems, a severe
drought has raised the specter
of water shortage and famine.
Twenty million peop1e are short on
water, while in sorne villages there is
no water at all. Cattle are dying in
the fields . The value of the lost crops
exceeds $4.3 billion. Many farmers,
heavi1y in debl to pay for irrigation
equipment, face loss of their farms to
their creditors.
So far the drought, called by sorne
the worst of the century, has not
caused much increase in actual star–
vation in India. But six million
people, according to conservative
government estimates, are going
hungry. Most of them live in rural
areas where lndian officials have not
yet set up fair price shops to distri–
bute government food supplies. Sorne
villagers have even been reported
foraging for roots and pawningjewel–
ry to buy food.
The drought has directly affected
14 of India's 31 states- and they
include the key food-producing ar–
eas. Worst hit is Andhra Pradesh,
where crop losses have reached 60
percent, and more than half of the
irrigated land is now barren. In the
Punjab, where record crops have
March 1980
by
Jetf Calkins
been piled up for several years now,
o.fficials put the loss at 20 percent.
Hard Hit Reserves
The drought has had a devastating
effect on lndia's painstakingly built–
up food reserves. India began the year
with 19 to 20 million tons of stored
food. But summer crop 1osses totaled
12 million tons, drawing down the
reserve by a like amount. As the dry
spell lingered, anxious officials pre–
dicted that winter crop 10sses wou1d
exhaust the remaining 7 million tons.
"I may sound a1armist, but this estí–
mate is near the truth,' ' said Bhanj
Pratap Singh, S tate Míníster for Fed–
eral Rural Reconstructíon.
India's 19-millíon-ton food reserve
represented
four straight years
of
good harvests. Never had so much
food accumulated in India. But one
bad year has wiped out a t least the
bulk of ít.
The drawing-down of lndia 's food
reserve is even more tragíc wben
viewed in terms of Indía's annual
food needs. lndia's 630 million
people normally consume, in a non–
famine year, .120 to 13.0 million tons
of grain.
After four good years
with
adequate rainfall, India had man–
aged to accumulate only 15 percent
of its annua1 food needs.
Thís was a remarkable accom–
plishment by hístorícal standards,
but woefully inadequate in the face
of an expandíng populatíon and the
continual potential for drought in the
Asían subcontinent. A year in which
overall production only slumped by
1O percent, according to the latest
UN figures, has substantially elimi–
nated the gains of the previous four.
The 1979 drought carne at a time
when India was making great strides
in food production. Besides building
up reserves of 19 million, the amount
of land being irrigated has doubled
over the past five years, and líterally
hundreds of thousands of írrigation
pumps have been produced and
installed. (However, in many cases,
field channels have not yet been dug
to get the pumped-out ground water
to the crops.)
The government had also started a
food-for-work system whereby rural
laborers work on irrígation projects and
are paid in grain, easing much of the
unemployment and economic hardshíp
caused by this year's drought.
But serious problems continue to
plague l ndian agriculture. Sorne
experts believe that as much as 25
percent of 1ndia 's food reserve may
have rotted, been eaten by rats or
pilfered. Even more serious, many
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