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What
is NFS?
NFS is National Food Security. It is the food security
regime the Indian state, like many other developing countries, is
completely committed to.
NFS means creating zones of
intensive agricultural production - Green Revolution zones - which
generate a marketable surplus of agricultural produce.
NFS means setting up a public
food procurement and distribution system. In India there are those
who do not have the purchasing power to buy Green Revolution food
from the market. The system is set up for such poor people, to ensure
they get food at affordable prices.
In theory, this system is salutary. In practice, it merely reproduces
state dependency for survival. It is a minimalist system, where
"food" means "rice/wheat" and "sugar",
and "nutrition" means "basic health". In this
reductive fashion, the system ensures that proper nutritional entitlement
is never achieved.
NFS means pursuing a food security
policy that regularly fails to achieve its aim. The food meant for
the poor often fails to reach those who need it most. In 2001, India
had a surplus food stock of 51 million tones. But 200 million of
its citizens remained undernourished.
NFS means not making villages
drought-proof. It means not making villages food-secure. It means
not enabling village economies generate their own wealth.
NFS is a complete eye-wash,
a grain-down-the-drain philosophy. Because NFS means avoiding the
Real Green Revolution.
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