Food management and dynamics of food policy

The procurement of rice and wheat is open ended and often excess procurement causes huge fiscal deficit for the country. The procurement reached an all time high during the period 2020-2022, when the government was burdened with huge stocks. While the distress caused by COVID 19 pandemic and global supply shock due to Russia-Ukraine war, enabled the country to unload the Foodgrain Mountain, the same cannot always happen. The situation is always fluid and actually began to reverse since 2022, due to persistence of war and other factors such as influence of unfavorable weather on crop production across the world. The global situation began to show symptoms of food shortage. In order to ensure domestic food security, the government imposed export bans. However, rather than extreme policy shifts from excess procurement to export ban, a strategy is required to maintain food and nutrition security through technological interventions. Merely increasing MSP of crops cannot put the house in order. Hence price policy coupled with technology and investment in R&D, can help the country to traverse the path of food and nutrition security. Increasing yield across crops and states is the real answer which will not only make India self sufficient but also enable the country to gain from favorable international prices.