Incremental Reforms in Food Policy: What Are the Possibilities?

India’s food policy is in a state of flux. This is a rare moment. Food policies and their governance have enjoyed stability and continuity for many decades. Indeed, the framework for these policies was set by the war-time interventions of the colonial government in India. Those interventions consisting of direct procurement of grain and rationed distribution had the object of securing food supplies for urban populations. Even though the objectives of food policy have mutated over the years, the interventions have not materially changed form despite changes in scale. The public distribution system (PDS) owes its origins to the rationing systems of World War II. The Food Corporation of India (FCI), the principal Central government parastatal responsible for foodgrain procurement and storage, was set up in the mid-1960s. The practice of offering support prices to rice and wheat also dates from that period. The series of reforms since 1991 that saw greater integration of India with world markets along with greater freedom for entrepreneurial activity left the food and agricultural sector largely untouched.