India Faces No Food Shortage Despite Drought

By all accounts, India is suffering its worst drought in 20 years.

The failure of the summer monsoon that normally brings life-giving rains by late June or early July has left much of the countryside parched and barren.

Even here in the state of Punjab, the showcase of Indian agriculture, farmers are facing hard times.

“This year we will grow only enough to feed ourselves,” farmer Nirmal Singh said last week. Because of the water shortage, Singh, 35, was able to plant only four of his 14 acres.

Bald, Brown Terrain

The fertile flatlands surrounding Singh’s village are a patchwork of similarly reduced crops, a few green tufts of irrigated rice on the otherwise bald and brown terrain.

Across the rest of northern and western India, the story is much the same or worse. The peanut crop has failed in Gujarat; there is no water for the rice fields in Haryana, and another bad year is in store for the farmers of Rajasthan, India’s desert state.

But India’s most severe challenge in two decades may also provide the setting for one of its greatest successes--proof that agricultural advances have made it resilient in the face of natural disasters, which once plagued its overpopulated countryside with famine and starvation.

The last comparable drought was in 1966, when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was forced to ask Western nations for emergency food supplies--including millions of tons of grain from the United States--to keep thousands of Indians from starving.

Since then, India’s population has increased by 300 million, more than the total population of the United States, to an estimated 780 million.

More Mouths, More Food

Despite this staggering increase in the number of mouths to feed, Indian agricultural specialists say that the country will not be forced to ask for emergency foreign aid because of this year’s drought, or even to buy grain on the world market.

Some Western diplomatic agricultural specialists are more skeptical. They note that the bad effects of this year’s drought will not result in a shortfall until next year, anyway, because of India’s surplus supplies.

“If it wants to run itself dry of stocks,” one diplomat said, “sure, India can make it through this drought without importing. But if next year’s crop doesn’t meet expectations, then they will surely need help. But they are not in a basket-case situation. If they do have to import, they will do it at the world market price, not on concessional terms.”

Indian officials themselves said the situation could change for the worse if farmers have a bad winter growing season. For a successful winter crop, they need rains this month and next, they said.

A Welcome Rain

On Thursday and Friday last week, they had good news in that regard, as large areas of Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Rajasthan received heavy rainfalls.

Ten hours of rain in New Delhi were enough to flood out many telephone exchanges and stall traffic. Farmers in hard-hit Haryana state celebrated the rains by passing out Indian sweets. News accounts from Rajasthan state reported bone-dry village ponds filling for the first time in months.

The rains were too late to save the Indian summer crop but they were an added boost to the country’s battle with one of the worst droughts of this century.

‘We Can Face This’

The consensus among agriculture experts in New Delhi is that India has the wherewithal to survive the crisis on its own--without the foreign donors and charity rock concerts that have helped other Third World countries.

“We can face this drought,” Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi said in his Independence Day address on Aug. 15. “No doubt there is drought, but we can face it today because of the Green Revolution brought about by Indira Gandhi.”

Meeting the drought with its own means is a tremendous point of pride for India and its people. The widely held image of India as a potential international beggar only a drop or two of rain away from international charity causes its leaders much pain.

“It is the worst year we have had in the last 20 years,” said P. V. Shenoi, a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture. “So we must rise to the occasion. Democracy means that no one should be allowed to go without food.”

Agriculture Advances

That an overpopulated country with a history of devastating famines could feed itself in the hardest times is testimony to the remarkable advances in agriculture it has made in recent years. The basis of the confidence shown by Indian officials is the success of the so-called Green Revolution of the last 15 years that Rajiv Gandhi credits to his late mother, Indira.

The revolution is actually the systematic introduction of modern agricultural techniques, including irrigation programs, improved seed stocks, intensive fertilization, mechanization and the use of pesticides.

These advances were pioneered by Norman Borlaug, the American Nobel Prize winner, who introduced his high-yield Mexican wheat to India in the late 1960s.

Indian farmers, particularly in Punjab, Haryana and western Utter Pradesh, took quickly to the new techniques, bolstered by an agricultural extension service modeled on the U.S. pattern and by a sophisticated system of government price supports.

Wheat Crop Doubled

As a result, India’s wheat production has more than doubled since 1970. Rice production has increased by more than 30%. In fact, despite the concurrent surge in population, the amount of grain produced per capita increased by 7% during the same period.

During the Bihar famine of 1966, in which thousands faced starvation, total food grain production in the country was only 72 million metric tons. Last year, it was more than double that figure, and there were massive surpluses.

India reached near agricultural self-sufficiency by the early part of the current decade, and in 1985, for the first time, actually exported wheat.

The biggest advances are attributable to irrigation. According to a senior Indian agricultural official, more than 30% of India’s farmland is now under some form of irrigation, involving either an intricate network of canals or water pumped from wells. This contrasts with 15% in 1966, the year of the last serious drought.

Irrigated Land

Since more than 60% of India’s food grain crops come from the land that is irrigated--about half from wells and the other half from Himalayan snow-fed rivers and canals--India is confident of achieving nearly two-thirds of its annual production, drought or no drought.

“Even in a year like this, 100 million metric tons is guaranteed,” the official said.

He said that Indian consumption of food grains, including rice, wheat, corn and lentils, is about 145 million tons. That is the target that Indian farmers and distributors must reach to remain self-sufficient.

Because of bumper crops in recent years, mainly in Punjab, the country now has 23 million tons of grain stored in silos. In fact, crops have been so bountiful that they have exceeded India’s ability to transport the grain to needy areas. Several million tons of grain is believed to have rotted in temporary storage bins.

Not All Areas Suffer

And not all Indian states have suffered because of drought this year. In fact, Bihar and West Bengal have had serious flooding. Ten of India’s 35 meteorological districts reported normal rainfall, and normal crops are expected in those areas.

These crops, together with those from the winter planting, should raise production to more than 137 million metric tons, or about 8 million tons below national consumption.

“Including the stocks we have stored,” the official said, “we could reach about 160 million tons.”

In other words, according to his estimates, India would meet its needs and still have about 15 million tons of grain left in storage.

“The only thing is, we would also be running down our buffer stocks,” he said.

Small Farmers Hurt

Western agricultural specialists, although generally in agreement with Indian analysts, warn that Indian agriculture officials are traditionally secretive about agricultural shortfalls, perhaps out of fear of driving up world grain prices.

The optimistic overall picture has not done much to help the suffering of the poor farmers. Particularly hard-hit are the small farmers and the farm laborers who depend on good seasons for survival. About 60% of India’s farms are of less than three acres.

“These are people who teeter on the margin of disaster even in good years,” a farm official said.

Here in Kheri village, 20 miles southwest of Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab, farmer Singh said he fears that he will be forced to borrow money to plant next year’s crops.

Water Table Falling

For five of his 14 acres, he has access to well water. But the water table has been falling steadily, from about six feet below the surface a decade ago to more than 35 feet during the present drought.

In past years he has counted on the monsoon rain to water the rest of his land, but this year it has rained only once. The blazing sun scorched his rice, cauliflower and cane before they had a chance to mature.

About the only man who is happy with this situation is the village goatherd, Roshan Lal, 23.

“The goats like the drought,” he said. “Usually these fields are in rice, and I must graze the goats on the roadside (where it is illegal). But the authorities catch me and take my animals, and I must pay to get them out.”

Study in Contrasts

On the day he talked with a reporter, Lal was grazing his goats and a few cows in the stubble of Singh’s fields, and the sight reflected the vivid differences in modern India.

Not far away, rice rose shiny green from irrigated farmlands, India’s insurance against starvation. Above Lal’s head was a power line from a Himalayan hydroelectric plant, bringing electric power for the pumps at the wells. Several Soviet-made Indian air force jets roared by in the distance.

As a kind of centerpiece to this mixture of poverty and development, Lal stood barefoot, dressed in rags, and leaned on his staff in the dusty field.