Sanitisers From Rice: At The Cost Of People’s Lives
Vikram Singh
India is known as a rich country of poor people, reflecting the huge gap here between the have and have-nots — a result of the policies adopted by the ruling classes of the country. This policy trajectory continues to be reflected on all areas of governance and in every manner, including in the present crisis of COVID-19 pandemic.
A recently convened meeting of experts at the National Biofuel Coordination Committee (NBCC), chaired by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, has allowed the conversion of surplus rice available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to ethanol, utilised in making alcohol-based hand-sanitisers and in blending for Ethanol Blended Petrol program. This decision has come in when millions of people are forced to starve due to the unavailability of food grains. The Centre has announced that 5 kg wheat or rice and 1 kg of preferred pulses will be provided free of cost under the National Food Security Act (NFSA). However, due to loopholes in the Public Distribution System (PDS), food grains aren’t reaching the public, forcing them into abject hunger.
There has been a long-standing debate over the use of food grains for biofuel throughout the world. In India, the Centre has adopted the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 which enabled the conversion of surplus food grains to ethanol. It reads, “during an agriculture crop year when there is projected oversupply of food grains as anticipated by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, the policy will allow conversion of these surplus quantities of food grains to ethanol”. This policy does not take into consideration the accessibility of food grains to the common people. Mere availability of food grains in FCI’s storage rooms doesn’t guarantee that food reaches the masses of citizens. Basically, this forms the crux of the argument against the use of food grains for biofuels. One cannot deny the importance of biofuels, but the pertinent question is who has the first right on food grains: human beings or machines. If we are feeding all human beings and the same is ensured for the future at least for a few years then, we can definitely allow the conversion of the food grains to biofuels or for other purposes.
The World Food Summit (1996) has clearly defined what ‘food security’ is. It says, “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. In general, the understanding of food security includes four dimensions: availability, accessibility, utilisation, and stability — lack of any of these dimensions will put the people in the category of ‘food-insecure’. The accessibility of food for the common people is the key in this definition. The above decision reflects that we have to ensure accessibility of nutritious food to all citizens, however, as crude as it may sound, the Indian reality is completely opposite to this.
India is the worst affected with respect to most indicators of food security, hunger, and malnutrition. India ranks 76th in 113 countries, in the assessment released by The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) last year, based on four parameters: affordability, availability, quality, safety, and natural resources. There is a decrease in food consumption of the rural population in India from 2011-12 to 2017-18 which depicts the whole story. This does not mean that there was less productivity in the agricultural sector, but it simply means that the Centre has failed to ensure the availability of food grains to citizens particularly in rural areas. In fact, in the same period (2011-12 to 2017-18), the production of rice in India increased by 8 per cent from 1053 lakh tonnes to 1128 lakh tonnes between 2011-12 and 2017-18. In the same period, production of wheat registered a hike by 5.3 per cent from 949 lakh tonnes to 999 lakh tonnes. The production of pulses also increased by 49 percent from 171 lakh tonnes in 2011-12 to 254 lakh tonnes in 2017-18. Thus, total cereal production also increased by 7 per cent in this particular period.
This disparity between rise in food production in India and fall in food consumption in rural India reflect the utter failure of the central government and its policies. As bizarre as it sounds, the county which produces enough to feed its people cannot ensure its accessibility to the people — only due to the incompetent governance.
This situation is affecting the health of the people in India as a whole and particularly in rural areas. The condition of families, with respect to the intake of calories, proteins, and micro-nutrients is inferior. The report of the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey 2018 also tells the same story. It reports that 38.4% of Indian children are stunted and more than 50% of women in the reproductive age are anaemic. Around 60% of the anaemic cases are related to poor nutrition and deficiency of iron.
One of the major reasons for failing to ensure accessibility of food to our citizens especially in the rural areas is the weakening of the PDS, which has played a vital role in feeding the common public. During the last 25 years, the nature of PDS has changed from universal distribution to targeted distribution, in the name of reducing leakage and corruption. However, the major reason still remains the target in every budget to ‘reduce the fiscal deficit by reducing subsidy’. Various studies show that none of the above stated reasons have been fulfilled by targeted distribution, and instead, it has resulted in severe consequences. In fact, studies show that the cost of feeding has gone up through targeted distribution, despite feeding fewer people. One of the reasons for this is the huge administrative cost of identifying, issuing and managing various ration cards. This has also become a source for political favours and corruption. The trimming of a universal PDS to a targeted PDS has also failed to check the price control function of a uniform system along with the erosion of the price control mechanisms of the Essential Commodities Act. Therefore, when the number of beneficiaries under PDS in India is continuously shrinking, the prices of the essential commodities are increasing. Food prices in India rose year-after-year capping at 10.01% in November 2019, following a 7.89% gain in the previous month and reaching its highest mark since December 2013. Food Inflation in India was at an average of 5.67% from 2012 until 2019.
This is an underlying contradiction in the policy of central governments — irrespective of their party affiliation — because they all have followed the same anti-people economic policies. In a welfare state like ours and under the pressure of democratic processes, governments pretend to be people-friendly but implement policies in favour of the rich — in effect, further marginalising the poor.
Decisions like the conversion of rice grains for ethanol production amidst the dual crises of COVID-19 and hunger due to lockdown will have dire consequences for the people in coming days. The UN World Food Programme has also warned the world for a similar situation. UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley, in his speech to UN Security Council on April 21, 2020 said, “821 million people go to bed hungry every night all over the world, chronically hungry, and as the new Global Report on Food Crisis published today shows, there are a further 135 million people facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That means 135 million people on earth are marching towards the brink of starvation. But now the World Food Programme analysis shows that, due to the coronavirus, an additional 130 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020. That’s a total of 265 million people”.
India also faces a similar situation: there is no scarcity of food grains, but masses are forced to starve due to unavailability and higher prices of food grains. India is continuously worsening its position in the Global Hunger Index (80th position held by India among 117 countries in 2015 further fell to 102nd in 2019, even much below its South Asian neighbours such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan). The COVID-19 lockdown has subsequently adversely affected the ‘Rabi’ harvest season and it will further worsen the situation.
The decision of the government to allow conversion of rice to ethanol shows us where the Centre’s priorities lie. This decision has paved the way to convert a huge stock of 30.57 million tonnes of rice, which is almost 128 per cent more than buffer stock and strategic requirement norms. This provision was there in The National Policy on Biofuels, 2018, but it was never invoked. It is in this context that the Centre has resorted to using ethanol to prepare sanitisers, exposing the sheer shrewdness of the ruling party.
It is important to note that at this juncture, there is no dearth of ethanol in India. In normal conditions, huge quantities of ethanol (2500-3000 million litre) are produced as a by-product in the sugarcane industry, and the same amount is used in liquor and chemical industries. We have set the aspirational target of 20% dosing of petrol, but we are far away from it and are not able to reach even 5% ethanol-blended petrol (EBP), largely due to the non-availability of any “surplus” ethanol. However, presently amid the lockdown, all the liquor distilleries and retail vends are not functional, which means ethanol is not being utilised as it used to be and may now be utilised to make sanitisers.
It is a known fact that under the dictate of the United States and international agencies like the World Bank and the WTO, the policy of agriculture and food security is largely influenced, which has prioritised biofuels over feeding the hungry. Policies like this will further worsen the life of common people. Rather than resorting to such means, the priority of the Centre should be to use additional buffer stock and strategically plan to ensure universal distribution of surplus food grains.
Dr. Vikram Singh is the Joint Secretary of the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union and a former General Secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI).
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