Meetings at Whole Foods, CNFA and IFPRI at Washington DC

Our day started with a meeting at Whole Food's Market that provides a niche market for natural and organic foods. They make constant endeavours in maintaining high standards of quality, satisfying customers, creating wealth, caring for community and environment, facilitating suppliers, promote healthy eating. One wonders whether such an initiative can be taken up by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) (to being with, it should be in a small scale but it can expand later) in Andhra Pradesh.

The days second meeting was with CNFA (an acronym for which I did not get the full form). This elusiveness was also evident in my understanding of what they are doing. Their interventions are among poorer regions of Africa, Central Asia and South Asia to increase productivity and give a higher income to farmers. But, it gave me an impression that they are using technologies that have been developed elsewhere and have not been locally grounded. One only hopes that their concerns of global hunger and food security has some good initiatives and it is a laudable. Nevertheless, concerns on immediate benefits and long term ramifications remain. The irony is that the immediate benefit will be shared by many but adverse consequences will only be limited to the local communities.

Outside our itinerary, the participants decided to go to a conference by USDA's 'The Economic Research Service: Celebrating 50 Years' and attended their session 3 'Leading the Study of the Food System'. There were four panelists. David Zorn, 'Understanding the Economics of Food Safety', talked about new technologies and the need for new regulatory systems and research so that consumers can make informed choice. More importantly food safety research has to go beyond presence/absence of germs. Discussions on other aspects of nutrition (sodium, fat, calories among others are equally relevant).

Elise Galon's 'Exploring the Determinants of Food Choice' discussed about What, Where, Why and How of Food and indicated about the affordability of food because of the prices. She touched upon the fact that there is a price variability across regions, but the value of food coupons given to the vulnerable is the same. There is also a need to understand food demand from the perspective of behaviourial economics. In a survey where people were told that the wine is from 'North Dakota' then they sipped and said it is not good. The same wine was given to them and they were told that it is from 'California' then the said that it is very good. These have implication that suggest that the choice the consumer has is 'subjective'.

Steve Carlson's 'Measuring Domestic Food Security' acknowledged the developments in measurement of food security but said that the main picture of hunger is missing in the analysis. What is more, the discussion of numbers misses the richness of information that one can gather from peoples experience and the socio-economic milieu.

Neel Convelin's 'Assessing Global Food Security' raised the global concerns of hunger. When it comes to households the question of distribution cannot be ignored. At the national level policies on trade and development become relevant and at the global level the growth of population should be kept in mind.

One of the questions, which was also in my mind, is that some of the discussions and views expressed here are missing in the policy on global hunger and food security. Are concerns of food safety not relevant there?

The last meeting of the day was at IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute). Guillaue Gruere has been working on South Asia with a focus on technology and has recently written a paper on farmer suicides and Bt cotton. This has reference to some of my earlier work. Kamiljon Akramov was working on development strategy and governance with a focus on Central Asia.

Later in the evening we went to Ford's theatre to see 'Liberty Smith'. It was an enthralling performance. 

May 2010: From Goa to North-east and back in Mumbai

This has been a fascinating summer for me. Travelled from Goa to the East/North-east and then back to amchi Mumbai. This sojourn, including Mumbai, spread across 10 states, was enlightening and here I recall a few selective encounters.

The trip to Goa (3-8 May) was a long due vacation. The initial plan was a trip to Himachal Pradesh with a few school friends...but it fizzled out in the last moment when we finally decided, on Munna's suggestion,to try out Club Mahindra, Varca beach, Goa. Neri, Nandini and I had a whale of time. In their words - I was without work after ages and 24 hours with them. The visit to temples and churches left us in awe. Honestly, we did not feel the pinch of summer.

Neri's exitement continued as we left for Hyderabad (my in-laws place), where Neri and Nandu stayed for the rest of the month. Summer was at its peak but nothing better than 'Mother's hearth' or 'Tatta and Ammu'. After a couple of days, I returned to Mumbai for the Task Force work. The days were spent working at the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) office and, post-dinner, Sarthak, a research scholar working for his PhD, and I tried to sort out some data issues with the 59th round National Sample Survey (NSS) on Situation Assessment of Farmers.

While in Goa, I received the news of my 'sana' mamu's death (my mother's younger of the two elder brothers). I decided to leave for Orissa to be ther on the tenth day. I also was keen to visit two of my teachers' families in Cuttack (one from school and the other one who had unfortunately passed away at a relatively younger age a couple of months earleir (see, Sakti Padhi Sir...). Finally I left for Kolkata and was lucky to get a train to Anugul (a special train that goes once a week).

In Kolkata, a comfortable way to reach Howrah is the Volvo bus - cheap (Rs.40 per person), air conditioned and fast. On the bus met an Odia family traveling from Arunachal Pradesh; offered an old lady my seat. They were all complaining about others not helping and soon managed to get a seat for themselves and created a world for themselves oblivious of others in the bus. En route, we crossed Badabazar (Baraabazzar in Bengali) where one could see banners and posters (surprisingly, all in Hindi!)for the local body election, which was subsequently won by Mamtadi's Trinamool. I was later told by a friend that this was always a Hindi speaking area.

This was my first visit to Anugul station, my mother's natal place and my own birth place. The situation was sombre, but nostalgic. I met many of my cousins and their children, after years, bringing back memories of childhood and the memorable hailstorms... As I sat with my aunt 'maain', ice pieces came and hit her; a sentimental thought occurred as if sana mamun was trying to tell us that he was very much with us all. I observed, there were some positive changes in the society. A decade ago, in case they lost their husbands, women were expected to wear white clothes; now - this had changed. Sana maain and some others present on the 10th day wore off-white sarees even with some light prints. Certainly a much needed, positive social change in that society.

The next day I was at Cuttack and went to Prof Sakti Padhi's house. I could not meet Sadhna Nani as she was with her son in Trivandrum but I spent some time at their place with her mother. From there I went to meet my school teacher Mr Jayace Nayak who taught us Geography and Economics. I met him after 25 years. It was a nice feeling. He was happy too and requested everyone from school to drop by his and other teachers' places whenever they could. There is an independent discussion on Mr Nayak at the Stewart School, Bhubaneswar facebook group. The most memorable thing at his place is about his daughter who is doing her 12th and planning to do her medicine and then serve the vulnerable poor in remote parts of the country, a noble thought indeed. The society needs more like you.

The day after, I was in Bhubaneswar at home for a few hours and left for Delhi for the Task Force meeting. The next day evening I was back in Kolkata to start my North-east trip for the Task Force.

After an overnight stay in Kolkata, I was in Agartala, Tripura the next day. Pre-paid phones do not work in the North-East, but anyway, the nation's security concerns precedes mine. The most impressive part of Tripura that I heard was that their Chief Minister was taking interest in people related issues and would be initiating camps in each and every block of the state to identify all farmers (including tenants) and try to get them into the formal credit fold before end June.

The next stop was Gwahati, Assam on the banks of Brahmaputra, the only male river. The sunrise at four was the highlight. With such an early sunrise I was surprised that the meeting was at 11, as in Mumbai. This was a blessing as I could use the morning to go to a village Dharapr nearby and visit some farmers who cultivate in 'shar' land (islands within Brahmaputra). SThe meeting later in the day was fruitful and then after a late luch suddenly decided to visit the Kamakshi temple, which was not in my itinerary. The visit was smooth and there was no queue but immediately formed within minutes. As they say, some things are destined to happen.

Dimapur, Nagaland was my next visit. The advisory here was not to venture out in the evening and if one is traveling then the best place to stay overnight is the church. I did go to a village Dhanasripar that was close by where I also met a landless household. The village comprises of Kacheri farmers (one of the 12 tribes who can own land in Nagaland) who also reside in Assam; in fact, the bordering village in Assam is called Dhanasri. Penetration of formal banking is low but many farmers have savings account in the bank branch in Assam, but they cannot get agricultural credit. Nagaland is also known for the hottest chilli and this is being used to produce pickle and self-defence spray. One is told that the preferred lingua franca is English, but when I asked the villager they preferred Hindi.

From Nagaland I went back via Gwahati to Shillong, Meghalaya. In the initial part of travel from Gwahati (till about the 17th mile) one has Assam on the left and Meghalaya on the right. On this stretch all petrol pumps and liquor shops are on the Meghalaya side - the reason is that taxes are lower. I had thought that I would stop by on the road if I see some farmers in their land, but was warned that the day being a Sunday, I would not be successful and it was true.

The next day morning I visited three villages- Lad Mawreng, Lait Bynter and Mylliem, all in East Khasi. Land rights here are matrilineal, but I did meet some without land. This could be because they or their mothers had sold out theirs due to some exigencies or as per tradition among Khasis a major portion and in some cases the entire land right passed only to the youngest daugther . Further, each village is identified by a particular tribe and they do give some land from the general pool to the landless for cultivation, but this is given to those from their own tribe and village. Like Nagaland, outsiders cannot buy land here, but what is most important is that the owners also have rights over natural resources. Thus, mining is a lucrating option where the owners of land get a regular source of income. One wonders, why could this could not be used in central India. Of course, aalong with some rights for the landless also.

With my visit over, I return via Gwahati and Kolkata to Hyderabad. Complete some Task Force work and meet some functionaries of the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) before getting back to Mumbai where I have my hands full till end June.