India’s economic boom fails to reach the plate

If 76 years after Independence, more than 74 per cent of the Indians are unable to afford a healthy diet, there is something seriously going wrong. And that too when the country happens to be one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and at the growth rate projections that it is likely to achieve, India is expected to become the third largest economy by 2027.

Whatever the size of the economy, and that too built largely with an unhealthy population, is a clear indicator of the growth matrix not being in tune with the health of the nation. This is certainly alarming.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced extending the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna for five years, under which free ration will continue to be provided to 81.35-crore beneficiaries, it was quite clear that the government sees the necessity of giving 5 kg of free ration in addition to the subsidised food priced at Rs 2-3 per kg prescribed under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) that people living under the poverty line are entitled to. Since NFSA caters to 67 per cent of the population, there is another 8 to 10 per cent that is in urgent need of alleviating their diet levels.

It is the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) that has in a Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023 come up with these startling figures. This was based on the estimates for the year 2021, which was a pandemic year, but the study says that the region continues to suffer from the same protracted effects. Sadly, the report says that the Asia-Pacific region has 370.7 million nutritionally-poor people, which is more than half of the undernourished population globally. Besides India, Pakistan has 82.8 per cent and Bangladesh with 66.1 per cent malnourished population. While Nepal has 76.4 per cent, Sri Lanka 55.5 per cent and Bhutan has 45.2 per cent of the undernourished population. The South Asian region thereby dominates the global undernourished map.

The FAO report also says that 53 per cent of the country’s women are anaemic, and 31.7 per cent of the children less than five years of age suffer from stunted growth, with another 18.7 per cent children technically suffering from wasting, which means they have low weight compared to their height. Interestingly, these estimates were earlier flagged by the Global Hunger Index (GHI) reports that India had rubbished saying that the methodology adopted was not appropriate.

While the FAO states that unless rising income levels cover up the rising cost of food, the unhealthy food trends will not reduce.

As far as the income levels are concerned, India continues to have a majority population living at levels that exist in Sub-Saharan Africa. In an article “Focus on the Base of the Pyramid’ (Hindustan Times, Aug 10, 2022) it was estimated that 900 million people in India were living with an income that matched Sub-Saharan Africa. With such low income levels, which continue to persist despite the economy growing at the other extreme, unhealthy diets will remain robustly sustainable. To substantiate, a recent calculation by the World Bank had shown that among the BRICS countries, India had 91 per cent of the population living under Rs 280 per day ($4 per day). This was the lowest among the emerging economies, with South Africa trailing second with 51 per cent population at the same income level.

To achieve healthy diets, the answer therefore lies in enhancing the incomes that prevail at the bottom of the pyramid. It may sound difficult or some will say impossible, but in reality it isn’t difficult to raise the average income levels. I have often said that since nearly 70 per cent of the rural households are dependent on agriculture, the answer lies in making farming a viable and profitable enterprise. With 47 of the farm workforce that is employed in agriculture being continuously deprived of a viable livelihood, they can never afford nutritionally-enriching diets. Many studies have pointed out that the rural wages, which in any case are amongst the lowest, have been further reduced or remain static. And when the poor households have low incomes, they cut down on food intake.

By keeping agriculture deliberately impoverished so as to keep food inflation under control, the macro-economic policies have stifled efforts to make farming a viable proposition. This reminds me of a flawed treatise on political economy that the Economic Survey had worked out in 2020 to measure the cost of a meal (thaali) that a common man pays across the country. In an article ‘Thaalieconomics gets it wrong” (The Tribune, Feb 8, 2020) I had explained how Thaalieconomics, as it was called, was to simply convey a message that food prices are within the reach of the average person on the street. In reality, what the report cleverly disguised was how farmers were being actually being penalised to grow cheap food.

The credit rating agency Crisil India continues with the analysis on a monthly basis, and I find Forbes India magazine publishing the series under ‘How India Eats’ and also some other newspapers carrying the report regularly. For September 2023, the analysis showed that with tomato and onion prices cooling, a vegetable thaali would on an average cost Rs 27.9. This was less by 17 per cent than what would have cost an average citizen to prepare the meal at home a month earlier. Similarly, the cost of non-vegetarian thaali was also worked out.

Given that the global cost of food production as estimated by FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2023 has been put at $12.7 trillion, and the hidden cost in India measured at $ 1.1 trillion, it is time to put a stop to the Crisil monthly estimates. By putting up a chart of vegetarian and non-vegetarian thaali every month, Crisil India is actually hiding the cost of producing true and healthy food. Considering that 74 per cent people in India are unable to afford healthy diets, the credit rating agency must be asked to explain how relevant is the cost it is trying to project if the unhealthy population continues to grow. A healthy nation should be the ultimate growth parameter for any country.

(The author is a noted food policy analyst and an expert on issues related to the agriculture sector. He writes on food, agriculture and hunger)