The World Bank estimate that 41.6% of India lives below the international poverty line.  That means that as many as 410 million Indian citizens are living on less than $1.25US a day.  If correct, this estimate implies that 1/3 of the entire world’s poor live in India, meaning that the importance of poverty reduction is exceptionally relevant to the country.  In the past 20 years, great gains have been made in reducing the number of poor encapsulated in these daunting statistics, but India is faced with an obligation to continue to reduce the number of people living in poverty.  India’s impressive growth has disproportionately benefited certain geographic and social groups.  For India to truly become a country that epitomizes the future of change, the wage gap and the economic inequality that accompanies it must be eliminated.

A multidimensional approach is required to address the problem of income inequality because the growing wage gap in India is not strictly an economic issue.  Public policy must be designed to create social opportunities that are not generated by the market mechanism.  While at the same time, economic policy must be in place to entice investors to emerging high technology sectors.  For growth to be inclusive, this economic policy must not be exclusive. In other words, economic policy must include protections for more traditional sectors, and for agriculture in particular.

This multi-lateral approach may not be simple but it is essential.  A comprehensive solution to income inequality will protect the rural poor without stifling emerging industries.  Public policy must provide a social safety net for the un- or underemployed and provide educational opportunities for the work force to gain skills. Economic policy will present the challenge of protecting and increasing the productivity of domestic agriculture, while simultaneously fostering innovation in high tech sectors.

India has had amazing growth in the past two decades. Now one of the most important emerging economies in the world, India has a special opportunity to craft a future of prosperity for all its citizens.  While conventional GDP growth is impressive, this newly created wealth has been concentrated and unequally distributed.  The improvements in income and standards of living have not filtered down to those living in poverty. This is likely because the idea of a “trickle-down” effect is both outdated and empirically wrong.  It is a incorrect notion based on the assumption that markets will solve market problems.  While markets may be able to select for efficiency in firms, markets are not moral.  The well being of all citizens of our increasingly globalized world requires direct attention to the market failures that give rise to issues surrounding inequality and deepening poverty.

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of education in ending poverty and inequality. Investment in education will empower a skilled population to take advantage of the opportunities provided in a global trade system. Continued investment in schools and scholarship is therefore essential to maintaining India’s current level of growth. Simultaneously, India must invest the infrastructure that will provide an educated public with skilled labor opportunities.  Skills, however, take time to acquire, and industries in which skilled labor is demanded do not emerge overnight. In the interim, in order to foster this more prosperous future, India must not neglect the immediate investment necessary to protect the livelihoods of the most vulnerable.

The true challenge lies in accurately allocating funds for both urban centers and rural communities.  It cannot be denied that urban centers are the engines of economic growth in our increasingly globalized world.  As IT, service sectors and tourism industries are established in Indian cities, it is natural and necessary to increase government funding for urban infrastructure; but it is essential that this funding not come at the expense of rural communities. By promoting and protecting IT and service sectors, while making the agricultural industry more susceptible to international competition, India is in danger of perpetuating the growing gap between rich and poor.  For a large rural population, agriculture is a fundamental source of income. Thus, by protecting domestic agriculture, India can ensure food security and safeguard rural livelihoods.

Historically, state intervention has favored industry over agriculture.  This can be a positive influence on increasing GDP, but it does not help to eliminate poverty or reduce inequality. This is because many of the poor live in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture as a source of income. In fact, some estimates claim that up to 75% of India’s poor live in rural areas. Thus, one of the hidden creators of income inequality is underinvestment in the agricultural sector.  As investment flows into cities, wealth creation is concentrated in urban centers. While it is incredibly important to foster industry, this kind of specialization cannot take place at the expense of the agricultural industry.  Not only is a robust agricultural industry important to national food security, it is also essential to ending the wage gap.

Policies that incentive industrialization must therefore be balanced with policies that protect traditional sectors such as agriculture and set aside funds for research and development.  Creating policy exclusively for the benefit of industrialization leads to artificially high profits for entrepreneurs without much immediate growth in employment.  Thus, a loss of agricultural income, compounded by low job creation in industrialized sectors, means that the loss of jobs in food production is not offset by job creation in new industries.  In this way, the increase in capital efficiency becomes concentrated in the hands of an elite few urban entrepreneurs.

India must increase investment in agriculture through research and development of more productive crops and growing methods.  Rural employment is dependent upon the agriculture sector.  A stable agricultural sector creates jobs, even for the landless laborers and day-wage earners who do not raise their own crops.  As agriculture becomes more productive and thus more profitable, a greater number of rural inhabitants will have the economic means to move to urban centers and consume modern technologies.  Concurrently, the increase of food availability can support a larger urban population, freeing up labor to allow the specialization of high technology centers to more forward.

Communities, families and individuals must be empowered to participate in, and take advantage of, the economic environment created by global trade.  Equal access to opportunities will ensure that the incomes of rich and poor no longer diverge at a drastic pace.  Investment in education will allow a greater number of citizens to acquire demanded skills, but this kind of investment is only useful if there is simultaneous expansion of infrastructure that creates future skilled employment opportunities.  Funds must therefore be invested in urban infrastructure and technological specialization, but financial support should be equally allocated to rural development and agriculture.

The policies that will create an equally prosperous future will require coordination, substantial financial backing and state involvement. As Joseph Stiglitz observed: the market and the state are complements, not substitutes.  Since markets are not moral, the state must intervene to correct for the market mechanisms that have forced the poor into deeper poverty. To meet Prime Minister Singh’s goal of “inclusive development,” new pro-poor policies must be implemented to ensure the India’s high growth is more equally distributed.  It is increasingly apparent that inclusive growth requires inclusive policies.  Marginalizing the agricultural sector only results in marginalizing the percentage of the population whose livelihoods are dependent on farming.  Through correct allocation of funds to education, urban infrastructure as well as agriculture, India can prevent the wage gap from worsening and provide better future for all citizens- rural and urban, poor and rich.

Foreign Policy Magazine’s May/June issue is focused on food.  From the politics of food to an argument for the world’s ability to feed a growing population, the online articles are worth checking out. Particularly controversial is a new study from Banerjee and Duflo who challenge the idea that there really are 1 billion people suffering from hunger.

The New Geopolitics of Food by Lester R. Brown

How Food Explains the World by Joshua Keating

More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World by Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo

Can the World Feed 10 Billion People? by Raj Patel

Graduate school loans won out over renewing domain names.  But, if you’re interested in German online shopping, it appears the domain has already been snatched up by a spam site.

Sadly, I was not able to port over the past year of posts back over to this blog, but I’m looking forward to writing again on this site.

Please visit the blog on the new domain.

My apologies for the short hiatus.  I’ve been working on something that I hope to share soon. I’ve also been taking time to travel which has led to some interesting food experiences that I will be covering in the next few days.

Bon appetit!

• US Ranks in the Top 5 Food Safety Culprits – Change.org
• The Health Care Bill will Mandate Calorie Labeling – Food Politics
• Students at Brandeis Demand Real Food – The Brandeis Hoot
• Pomona Student Analyzes School’s Real Food for Thesis – The Student Life

Food and water are both basic human rights.  There are a billion people worldwide without reliable access to clean water- the same number of people who suffer from hunger. 1 billion people. It’s unacceptable that so many people are being denied such basic needs.

March 22nd, World Water Day , is set aside to address the issue of water and work towards a healthier world.  Water is an undervalued resource and the importance of conservation and cleanup cannot be overstated.  With the possibility of resource wars looming, it’s crazy that private corporations are profiting off of what should be a free natural resource.  While 1 billion people try to find safe, drinkable water, some countries are willing to pay a 2,000% markup to buy it in a plastic bottle.

Annie Leonard, creator of the Story of Stuff, has just released the Story of Bottled Water.  It’s eerily similar to the “Story of Food”- we’ve been duped by marketing into buying an unhealthy product that destroys the environment.  Here’s to hoping she considers making that story next, but please take a few minutes to learn about the water industry by watching her fascinating film:

• This is why a salad costs more than a Big Mac – The Consumerist
• The Spread of Superbugs – Nicholas Kristof
• India’s Green Revolution is suffering due in part to soil degradation – Wall Street Journal

Definition: Food Desert: A district with little or no access to foods needed to maintain a healthy diet but often served by plenty of fast food restaurants.

The concept of ‘access’ may be interpreted in three ways.

• ‘Physical access’ to shops can be difficult if the shops are distant, the shopper is elderly or infirm, the area has many hills, public transport links are poor, and the consumer has no car. Also, the shop may be across a busy road, difficult to cross with children or with underpasses that some fear to use because of a crime risk. For some, such as the disabled, the inside of the shop may be hard to access physically if there are steps up or the interior is cramped with no room for walking aids. Carrying fresh food home may also be hard for some.

• ‘Financial access’ is difficult if the consumer lacks the money to buy healthy foods (generally more expensive, calorie for calorie, than less healthy, sugary, and fatty ‘junk foods’) or if the shopper cannot afford the bus fare to remote shops selling fresh foods and instead uses local fast food outlets. Other forms of financial access barriers may be inability to afford storage space for food, or for the very poor, living in temporary accommodation that does not offer good cooking facilities.

• Mental attitude or food knowledge of the consumer may prevent them accessing fresh vegetables. They may lack cooking knowledge or have the idea that eating a healthy diet isn’t important.

[Source]

Why it matters: Access to healthy food is not a privilege, it’s a right.  Good food needs to be available to everyone, regardless of income level.  It’s a basic need that is completely out of reach for people living in urban food deserts.

What to look for: Your representatives contact info! This is more a case of “what you need to do” rather than “what you need to look for.” Contact your representative and urge them to support Obama’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative.

• Does food waste hurt the environment? – Scientific America
• Peruvians say no to biotechnology – La Vida Locavore
• 5 Sustainable Winter Foods – Change.org
• Walmart makes an effort to sell more local food – The Atlantic
• Brazil makes food security a constitutional right – Change.org