Importing food when there is no shortfall in production. It only destroys farm livelihoods.

Potato dumped on the streets in Punjab. Not an unusual sight. -- Tribune photo

There has hardly been a year in memory when farmers have not thrown potato on the streets in protest against low prices. And yet, the government has allowed import of potato for the first time ever. While the official explanation is that the imports are to augment the domestic supplies and curb inflation, the fact remains that production of potato has been almost normal this year with an insignificant shortfall by a mere 2.3 per cent.

While the Ministry of Agriculture has directed Nafed to float tenders to ensure shipments reach by the end of November, potato crop from Punjab is expected to hit the market by the middle of November. The domestic market would be flooded by time the imports come in and I wouldn’t be surprised if farmers are once again forced to dump cartloads of potatoes on the highways. I therefore don’t understand the economic rationale of allowing the import of potato when there is hardly any drop in production. Experts say the Kharif crop has been good, and the winter crop that is expected in mid-November onwards is also expected to be normal. India is the third biggest producer of potato after China and Russia.

But then, under pressure from a strong lobby of economists, food inflation is coming in as a handy excuse to open up the Indian market for import of fruits, vegetables and milk products. This is exactly what European Union is demanding under ongoing negotiations of the bilateral Indo-European Union Free Trade Agreement.

The domestic potato chip, fries and flake industry is now pressing for removal of the 30 per cent import duty on potato to make the imports cheaper. Since Pakistan is not in a position to supply potato this year, and had resorted to duty-free potato imports continuously from India from March onwards with some 3,000 trucks crossing over daily from Wagah border, potato imports into India are expected mainly from Europe and Australia. The Economic Coordination Committee of Pakistan Cabinet has reportedly approved the duty-free imports of potato from India till Nov 15.

Potato is not the only victim of an ad hoc import-export policy. On a visit to a food processing unit in Sonepat district in Haryana, I was shocked when I was told that tomato paste is being imported in large quantities from China at a time when farmers were forced to throw tomatoes onto the streets for want of buyers. When food inflation was at its peak, reports of dumping of tomatoes by farmers had poured in from several parts of the country, including Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

With tomato prices crashing to Rs 2 (and at several places to Re 1 per kg) farmers had no choice but to feed it to cattle or to throw it away. Just in one month, between Aug 28, 2014 and Sept 28, 2014, India imported US $ 376,009 worth of dried tomato and tomato products (like paste, pulp and juice concentrate) from China, followed by US $ 94,057 worth of imports from Nepal, and US $ 44,160 from the Netherlands.

Not many know that the popular brands of tomato ketchup, tomato puree and even tomato juices that we consume at home are made from tomatoes imported from China, Nepal, Italy, USA and the Netherlands. In other words, we are inadvertently helping tomato farmers of the countries from where we import while our own farmers are left to die. The food processing industry obviously justifies the imports but what remains unexplained is if the objective of the industry is to source cheaper products from abroad why does the Ministry of Food Processing claim that agro-processing is a boon to Indian farmers?

Take the case of pasta. While huge quantities of wheat rots in godowns, Indian import of pasta from Italy has been growing at a phenomenal rate of 39 per cent per year. Since pasta is made from wheat, I don’t understand why efforts should not be made to produce pasta within the country rather than importing it. India’s import market for pasta has grown in ten years from Rs 3.39 billion in 2003-04 to Rs 17.22 billion in 2013-14. And again, pasta attracts an import duty of 40 per cent, and it is expected the import tariff would be reduced to 20 per cent after the Indo-EU FTA comes into effect.

How irrational food imports destroy domestic production is evident from the way India deliberately encouraged edible oil imports at the cost of its millions of oilseed farmers. These were small holders in the dryland regions of the country for whom oilseeds was a cash crop. Their livelihood has been snatched for the sake of economic benefit to edible oil producers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and United States.

It is true that edible oil import bill has multiplied over the past three decades. For the year ending 2012 (edible oil year is from Nov 2011 to Oct 2012, for instance), the imports touched 9.01 million tonnes valued at Rs 56,295-crore. Between 2006-07 and 2011-12, edible oil imports have risen by a whopping 380 per cent. Former Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar often used to stress on the need to increase oilseed production so as to reduce the edible oil imports.

But what was not being told was that India had attained near self-sufficiency in oilseeds production by 1994-95, importing only 3 per cent of its edible oil requirements. After 1994-95, the import tariffs were brought down systematically as a result of which the imports grew. Against a provision of 300 per cent import duties, India allows zero tariffs at resent. Imports are now more than 50 per cent of the domestic requirement. So much so, that after having destroyed its own Yellow Revolution, a strong lobby of economists has been battling for encouraging cultivation of  environmentally-destructive palm oil plantations.

Worldwatch Institute has shown how palm oil monoculture adds to desertification, and also exacerbates global warming by releasing 10 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than tropical forests. Unmindful of the ecological damage, Ministry of Agriculture plans to bring in 1.03 million hectares of forests – mainly by cutting down lush green  forests in Mizoram, Tripura, Assam, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka – and growing palm oil plantation to produce about four to five tonnes of edible oil. The economic rationale is beyond my comprehension. First destroy the oilseed producers, and then cut down forests to produce edible oils. A remarkable model of development indeed ! #

1. Helping imports, hurting farmers. Orissa Post. Oct 22, 2014
http://www.orissapost.com/epaper/221014/p8.htm

2. Sourcing local farm produce rather than imported concentrate.
http://chssachetan.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/sharma-source-local-farm-produce-for-processing-rather-than-imported-concentrate/

3. No rationale behind potato imports. Hindustan Times, Chandigarh. Oct 26, 2014
http://read.ht/kYm

4. आयात का औचित्य Dainik Jagran, Oct 25, 2014
http://www.jagran.com/editorial/apnibaat-justification-of-import-11724002.html

What went wrong with Indian economy

Addressing the UN General assembly in Sept 2011, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said: “Till a few years ago the world had taken for granted the benefits of globalisation and global interdependence. Today, we are being called upon to cope with the negative dimensions of those very phenomena.”

“The shoots of recovery which were visible after the economic crisis of 2008 have yet to blossom,” he said, adding:” In many respects the crisis has deepened further.” If the Prime Minister knew what was coming, the question that needs to be asked is then why did he allow the Indian economy to take the same route towards self-destruction? The rupee has been on a free fall, the current account deficit – the difference between export and imports – have surged to the pre-1991 levels, and the fiscal deficit shows no visible signs of reduction.

Prime Minister should have known it much better. Even at the peak of the economic growth period, between 2005 and 2009 when economy grew at 8 to 9 per cent, the high economic growth did not result in job creation. According to a Planning Commission study, 14 million people were pushed out of agriculture, and another 5.3 million jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector in the same period. If growth was not translating into additional jobs, and instead was leading to increased joblessness, there was something going wrong.

In the 9 years since Manmohan Singh took over, India has been flooded with cheaper manufactured goods, the imports touching $ 50 billion (Rs 3 lakh crore). Nearly 54 of the imports have come in from China alone. Much of the imports were of consumer goods that could have been easily manufactured within the country. As if this is not enough, India is now having talks with China to sign a free trade agreement. In any case, India has been on a fast-track mode to sign bilateral trade agreements with some 34 countries. The result: imports have far exceeded the exports from India, which means the trade agreements had not benefited the country. 

Prime Minister cannot blame anyone. He himself has been pushing for bilateral trade agreements despite the warnings that the imports are surging.

Take the case of the proposed India-European Union trade agreement in the offing. The EU is insisting that India opens up by reducing import duties on wines and spirits, and also drastically cut back import tariffs on milk imports, from the present level of 60 per cent to 10 per cent. This will bring a flood of milk imports into India which ironically is the biggest producer of milk in the world. Importing cheap and highly subsidised agricultural commodities as well as manufactured goods is like importing unemployment. Because of the reduction in import duties of edible oil from 300 per cent to zero percent, for instance, India is now importing edible oils worth Rs 60,000-crores every year.

While economists are hammering the Rs 1.25-lakh-crore food security bill saying that such massive public outgo will add on to the fiscal deficit, no mention is ever made of the Rs 30-lakh-crore that has been doled out the industry since 2005-06 in the form of tax concessions. But despite the huge subsidy, the industrial output had been steadily on a decline. In May 2013 it stood at minus 1.6 per cent, exports have remained subdued, manufacturing has been almost killed. So wasn’t the tax exemptions a wasteful expenditure? If recovered, the tax exemption alone could have wiped out the country’s entire fiscal deficit.

Had the massive tax concessions to India Inc., which is clubbed under the category of ‘revenue foregone’, were instead invested within the country, it could have created millions of jobs. While industrial production remained dipped, equally shocking is the massive hoarding of cash that the private sector has been stacking. By Mar 2012, India Inc was sitting over cash reserves of Rs 10-lakh-crore. There is no need for India to bend backwards to attract foreign direct investments when its own corporate were sitting over a mountain of cash. Forking it out could have created investor’s confidence and improved the business sentiments.

On top of it, a Credit Swiss report shows that the top ten big corporate groups in India have shown a six-fold increase in external commercial borrowings to reach a staggering Rs 6,30,000-crore. But these massive borrowings did not result in adequate returns thereby increasing the external debt. With so much of external borrowings and with cash reserves growing, what prompted the Govt to provide hefty tax concessions year after year needs to be investigated. In the last two years alone, Rs 11-lakh-crore has been doled out. 

  

Sadly, all this was allowed to happen when the Prime Minster knew that free market policies and deregulation were behind the economic woes. Instead of taking appropriate corrective steps he allowed the Indian economy to dither and slide. This is where he faltered. In fact, the solutions that are being proposed to prop up the ailing economy are the same that initially led to the economic downturn. More of the same, will only add to the crisis. 

Depreciating Rupee: Fault lies with our own policies.

Indian rupee is at a historic low. Every day the downslide of the rupee makes for headline news. Coming at a time when the Euro has crashed to a nearly two-year low against the dollar, and when the exit of Greece from the Eurozone looks imminent, the continuous sinking of the rupee has baffled me. I can understand when I read that rupee is sliding against the US dollar, but how come the rupee is also sliding against the sinking Euro?

Providing some justification, Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu points out that currencies of several emerging economies -- South Africa, Brazil and Mexico -- are also on the downslide. This only shows how true my concerns have been over the faulty economic pathway being followed by the BRIC countries. Like the erstwhile Asian Tigers, who blindly aped the World Bank/IMF prescription, BRIC too is repeating the same mistakes. I wouldn't be surprised if sooner than later BRIC economies too collapse.

Nevertheless, Kaushik Basu told a private channel: "The current exchange rate problems that you are seeing .. the very sharp depreciation that is taking place .. i don't think it really has anything to do with our policy or policy mistakes being made over here, which is causing that." Of course, you don't expect the Chief Economic Advisor to admit that it is because of his faulty policies that the country is deep in economic crisis. So when the government suddenly gave a crude shock on May 24 -- raising the petrol prices by the steepest Rs 7.50 per litre increase in one go -- it became clear that all is not well. Congress spokespersons can justify the increase linking it to global prices, but the fact remains that crude oil prices are decreasing over the past few months. Even with the rupee depreciation, there is no reason why the consumers should be made to cough out extra for every litre of petrol.

Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar has come out with an interesting front-page analysis. It says that the crude oil price in May 2011 was US $ 114 per barrel. The rupee-dollar exchange rate at that time was Rs 46, and therefore the import bill was Rs 5,244 per barrel. A year later, in May 2012, the crude oil price is $ 91.47/barrel, and even though the exchange rate is Rs 56, the import bill does not exceed Rs 5098/barrel. So why have the petrol prices been increased? I don't think any economist or a spokesperson for the government will like to respond to this. In simple terms, the rise in petrol prices is the austerity measure that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee talked about the other day.

Returning back to the issue of the rupee sliding with every passing day, I read an interesting article by senior economic journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. Writing in the Deccan Chronicle (And the rupee wept on, May 22, 2012), Paranjoy tries to explain the complex reasons behind the rupee depreciation. "In fact, the principle reason why the value of the Indian currency has come down sharply in relation to the US dollar is the huge 56 per cent hike in the country's trade deficit (the difference between the value of imports and exports) in 2011-12 over the previous year."  Although there are other factors also impacting the rupee downslide, including foreign investors shying from putting money in stock exchange, but the widening trade deficit seems to be more reasonable of the causes.

He further goes on to write: "This is because of the fact that while imports have risen by nearly a third , the rate of growth of exports in 2011-12 has halved from the 41 per cent growth achieved in previous fiscal year (2010-11)."  I can understand that the rising import bill is primarily because of oil imports. As Paranjoy says: "Imports are not coming down because one-third of India's total imports currently comprises  crude oil and 80 per cent of the country's requirements of crude oil are imported." And since the markets for Indian exports has shrunk abroad, especially in the west, Indian exports are down.

Now, come to think of it. Although Kaushik Basu does not hold the UPA policies to be responsible for the widening trade deficit, I don't understand the reason why India has steadily and systematically opened up the trade barriers by reducing and phasing out import tariffs to encourage imports. Crude oil has to be imported because we don't produce enough, but why should we be importing edible oil for instance. India is the 2nd biggest importer of edible oil, expected to import 9 million tonnes this year. You will be surprised to know that in 2009-10, India had imported 9.24 million tonnes of edible oil valued at Rs 38,000-crores (source: Financial Express, http://www.financialexpress.com/news/vegetable-oil-imports-touch-new-high-at-9.2-million-tonne/712217/). In the past 5 years, edible oil imports have almost doubled.

The outgo of Rs 38,000-crore in terms of dollars (it would be much more in 2011-12) could have been easily avoided if the government had followed the right policies. Why I am saying this is because it was in 1993-94 India had turned almost self-sufficient in oilseed production following the launching of Oilseeds Technology Mission by Rajiv Gandhi. It was then that the Commerce Ministry started reducing import tariffs, and have actually brought the import duties to almost zero. The imports picked up in the process, and the oilseed farmers were forced to move to other crops in the wake of cheaper imports. It was therefore a double whammy. Farmers suffered, and imports (and import bill) grew manifold.

Similarly, I find that despite the 2009 global economic meltdown, India has not drawn any lessons. While all industrialised countries are pushing for export markets, India is merrily opening up its economy to unwanted imports. First under WTO, and now under the Free Trade Agreements (the two most recent and damaging bilateral trade treaties are the Indo-Asean and Indo-EU FTA still to be completed), that India is bowing to pressure to open up for imports. Well, if you are encouraging imports in areas where the country has enough production capacity don't blame the global economic crisis for the depreciation of the rupee. It is our own doing, and we must accept responsibility. It is high time India makes an immediate correction in its trade policies to ensure that it does not become a dumping ground.