'Food imports indicate neglect of farm sector'

Agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan has cautioned that imports of pulses or oil seeds indicate that, "We have neglected those areas."

"Sixty per cent of our farmlands are rain-fed. Pulses and oilseeds are their cash crops. If we import them, it shows that we have neglected them. Imports should be a lesson to us," he said.

He was inaugurating a three-day symposium on 'Building leadership skills in food and nutrition essential for national development', at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore.

Referring to problems like malnutrition, rural unemployment and poverty, he said that they continue to persist inspite of India having a long tradition of responses to problems and fairly capable governments.

"Inspite of programmes like the the national rural employment programmes and the common minimum programme, we have not been able to make good strides."

"The United Nations says that we still have a great number of malnourished sections," Swaminathan, who is presently the founder director of the Chennai-based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation said, attributing the reason for this 'Indian enigma' to the failure to recast the delivery systems, failure to build up the links from top to the lowest levels.

"Awareness is there, but when it comes to action, it is missing in India," he lamented adding, "We have not been able to integrate several programmes into a symphony. National policy and local solutions are obviously important. An integrated system needs to be developed."

Citing Thailand as an example, he said, "In India, we have the example of Kerala. But even there 27 per cent of the people are undernourished, while Madhya Pradesh has the highest percentage of 72."

To overcome this situation, food scientists had made a series of recommendations in the 10th Plan. An effective ways could be setting up of 'Gyan Choupals' to build up nutritional literacy and leadership training for chosen members of the 2.4 lakh panchayats and local bodies, which had a million women members.

Similarly, establishment of nutritional resource centres, a one-stop centre at the block level in villages, to make available all nutritional resource information to farmers, including rainwater-harvesting and land use, with lab and land demonstrations was another recommendation. Chennai had done this in rain harvesting, he said.

He recommended that the CFTRI be made a hub for nutrition security learning and training.

In his keynote address, America's International Nutrition Foundation president Nevin Scrimshaw warned that failure to improve human capacity will have a high economic and social cost for any country.

In his welcome address, CFTRI director V Prakash observed that technology reaches out through food fortification is a critical issue dealing with both economics and nutrition.