28 December 2023 – The Hindu

Issues related to the Agri-Food System

• Over a billion people rely on the agriculture sector to grow, process, and distribute food, as well as to support their jobs and way of life.
• We are facing more and more pressing global challenges at this critical juncture, such as inadequate food supply, restricted food access, and affordability worries. In addition, the detrimental effects of farming and food production lead to hidden expenses related to health, societal issues, and the environment.
• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) breaks out these “hidden costs” of our agrifood systems and examines their effects in its study, The State of Food and Agriculture 2023.

What Are Agriculture’s and Food’s Hidden Costs?

• Agrifood systems come with hidden costs to the environment in the form of greenhouse gas and nitrogen emissions, water use, altered land use, health hidden costs in the form of productivity losses brought on by unhealthful eating habits, and social hidden costs in the form of poverty and undernourishment-related productivity losses.
• The FAO’s first attempt to evaluate the hidden costs of agrifood systems at the national level across 154 countries is the State of Food and Agriculture 2023.

In a global context, what are the report’s main highlights?

• In 2020, the estimated global hidden costs of agrifood systems were valued at $12.7 trillion at purchasing power parity (PPP), or about 10% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).
• Globally, dietary trends linked to obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which lower labour productivity, accounted for 73% of the measured hidden costs in 2020.
• Nearly one-third of agricultural value added is represented by the quantifiable environmental hidden costs associated with agriculture, which make up more than 20% of all quantified hidden costs.
• From a socioeconomic perspective, it is projected that in order to stay above the moderate poverty level, the earnings of the moderately poor employed in agrifood systems need to rise by 57% in low-income nations and 27% in lower-middle-income countries.
• It emphasises how crucial it is to take these expenses into account when making decisions in order to change agrifood systems.
• What was said in the report in relation to India?
• India incurred the third-highest hidden costs of agrifood systems globally, after China and the US, at almost USD 1.1 trillion.
• According to the FAO research, China provided 20% and the US supplied 12.3% of the global quantified hidden costs connected with agrifood systems, with India contributing 8.8%.
• The greatest percentage of hidden costs in India was attributed to the burden of disease (productivity losses resulting from dietary patterns), which was followed by the environmental cost of nitrogen emissions (13%), the social cost of poverty among agrifood workers (14%), and the social cost of poverty itself.
• It highlights how crucial it is to repurpose assistance in order to change agri-food systems and provide everyone with a diet that is both healthful and environmentally sustainable.

What is the effect of intensive agricultural practices on India’s hidden costs?

Effect on the Community:

• Collapse of Indigenous System: Indigenous knowledge systems have been disrupted, single-crop plantations have replaced a diversity of crops including pulses and millets, and Indigenous sovereignty has been undermined by the introduction of seeds purchased from multinational corporations and the use of fertilisers.
• However, India’s ancient farming methods are more in line with nature, give stability, and have a wider variety of crops. Barahnaja is a crop diversification technique used in the Indian region of Garhwal Himalayan to grow 12 different crops in a year.
• Increasing Debt: The deregulation and privatisation of agricultural inputs resulted in a rise in household debt among agrarian households. In India, a farmer’s household’s debt-to-asset ratio increased by 630% between 1992 and 2013.
• Low Agrarian Income: The average monthly household income of a farming household in India is ₹10,816. Agriculture has grown progressively less profitable in the country.

Effect on the Environment:

• Reduced Soil Fertility: Certain nutrients in the soil might be lost as a result of intensive agricultural methods like monoculture and improper crop rotation.
• Over-Extraction of Groundwater: Irrigation is a major component of Indian agriculture, as it guarantees a steady and adequate supply of water for crops. Due to this tendency, groundwater was extracted excessively, which had negative ecological effects.

Effect on Well-Being:

• Increased groundwater resource pressure, biodiversity loss, and air and water pollution are all consequences of the growth of rice and sugarcane farming.
• How may the hidden costs associated with India’s agrifood systems be reduced going forward?
• Crop variety: To increase soil fertility, lower the danger of pests and diseases, and boost overall agricultural resilience, encourage crop rotation and variety.
• Cultivating Climate-Resilient Crop Varieties: To find and employ crop varieties that have historically shown resilience to local climate conditions, combine traditional agricultural expertise with contemporary scientific methodologies.
• For instance, millions of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa have benefited from the development and spread of drought-tolerant maize cultivars.
• With precision irrigation, you can make sure that every drop of water is used as efficiently as possible to promote plant growth.
• Utilising drip and sprinkler irrigation can optimise water consumption while mitigating adverse environmental effects.
• Variable rate fertilisation is a technique used in agriculture where fertiliser is applied differently across a field according to changes in crop demand, soil nutrient levels, and other pertinent variables.
• By adjusting fertiliser delivery to the unique requirements of each crop and field, variable rate fertilisation can be accomplished through the use of soil testing, remote sensing, and precision agriculture technology.

Modifications to Government Policy:

• Agrifood hidden costs can be reduced by government policy through regulation, subsidies, and taxes.
• Public and private entities can collaborate to manage and minimise issues in the agriculture industry by sharing risks and duties.

Integrating Justice Into the Agri-Food Industry:

• Intergenerational Justice: Own up to and rectify the detrimental effects of the agri-food industry in the past.
• The goal of intragenerational justice is to ensure that resources are distributed fairly within the same generation and that farmers receive just recompense.
• Interspecies Justice: Reject the idea that humans are exceptional and fairly assess, preserve, and restore the value of ecosystems and biodiversity.
• The True Cost Accounting Method of the FAO:
• The hidden costs of agrifood enterprises can be addressed by applying the FAO’s true cost accounting system, which values the industry’s environmental, social, health, and economic costs and benefits.
• It will entail rules governing how companies make, prepare, and market their goods.

Way Forward:

• It is clear that our current trajectory is straining the Earth’s system beyond safe and just limitations as we stand on the brink of an environmental calamity. Not only can we stop the harm from getting worse, but we also have the power to bring about a fair and radical change that can reset our relationship with the environment. Bringing attention to the urgent need for a significant and fair overhaul of our food system is an important first step.