Economic Opportunity Mailing List Archive

[<address removed>]

I fully agree with Michael Lipton's point that without sustained initial, 
employment-intensive, smallholder-based yield growth in agriculture, probably 
focusing initially on food staples the poverty eradication is imposible.
And I also agree with him that the debate in this forum is not focused on this 
important point. And since this point isnt challenged by anybody , including 
Simon Maxwell, I believe that we now need to turn to the issue of 
implementation of ,what Lipton calls as, Plan A.

However I still have some points in this context.
1.The yield growth in staple can trigger economic grwoth only if there is 
increased demand for the these staples. Or else the prices will fall and this 
might outweigh the advantage.
The issue here is can we generalise this argument of staple yield growth as a 
way to break the poverty trap? In Indian context,it is argued that the demand 
for coarse cereals has decreased and finer grains like wheat and rice have 
replaced them.Especially the coarse cereals like Sorghum (Jowar ) and Bajra.I 
am convinced that the increase in productivity of these staples will surely 
increase the food security of these farmers and which is equally important.But 
its potential to trigger growth is something which needs to be explored.
2.There is a related issue here, and again it has Indian context.The 'Green 
revolution crops'like wheat and rice are procured by the central government at 
a price much higher than the domestic market price as well as international 
price.And the Indian government is now facing the challenge of disposing off 
these huge stocks of rice and wheat.These stocks are also channelised through 
the public distribution system catering to the needs of the poorest class of 
the society . So the demand for the locally grown staples has shifted towards 
these 'Biggish green revolution crops'.So unless major reforms in the support 
price policies are undertaken with the consequent diversification away from 
wheat and rice towards other high value crops the locally grown staples will 
continue to experience the price suppressing effect.These reforms are difficult 
to achieve as the the political pressures from the strong farmers lobbies 
against any such move is very difficult to resist.The much needed 
diversification in the green revolution belts is also thwarted due to falling 
international prices resulting from the huge subsidies in the OECD countries.
3.Even if we , for the time being, neglect the political national and 
international factors,will not the continuing productivity of the grains from 
green revolution belt continue to take away the demand for (coarse)locally 
grown staple food?
Milind Murugkar,
Nashik,India