Sreelatha Menon: Scripting food depletion

Food lies outside the radar of the land acquisition Bill and policy makers

The land acquisition Bill will soon be a law. It will mean whether or not a consent is given before the land is acquired, people will be compensated. Hence, land will definitely be acquired without creating disputes and delays. That land is the source of food and agriculture is remotely touched in the Bill, except in the case of large holdings. That it leaves small and medium farmers at the mercy of land sharks will have repercussions on the future of food security, as most foodgrains come from small holdings.

Policy makers justify this approach in several ways. Here is one: If the country has a surfeit of minerals and wealth, why can’t it import food? What it implies is that investing in food production is bad. And, food surplus is not universally welcome.

Those who argue in favour of this position are as well meaning as those passionately arguing against it.

The argument, however, changes when it applied to extraction of minerals. Here, the same policy makers, including authors of the mining Bill, argue in favour of mining metals beyond one’s need.

The mining Bill also has to do with land acquisition. For the first time, it recognises those whose land is taken for extraction of minerals. Mining does not require land acquisition, for land is taken on lease. The new law will not change this. Except for the fact that there would be sharing of profits.

There is a certain reasoning behind this approach to land and their owners.

Senior officials in the government involved in drafting these laws explain how India can’t live in isolation — that it has to sell its mineral wealth to get a supply of things from outside. Most of all, it can do with more wealth. And, there is plenty of minerals, especially iron ore underneath. Therefore, activists and environmentalists should stop whining and misleading the nation (defined as those who live outside forests and are unlikely to have the earth dug from underneath their feet for mining) and just let extraction happen. Or, in other words, stop bothering the Poscos, the Vedantas and others, who are only helping dig out minerals, so that India could exchange these for things it doesn’t have.

As for the huge human cost of mining, the government as well as the authors of the mining Bill believe this should be recovered in the cost of the mineral, royalties and export duty, and not in cutting down on mining itself!

This new realisation — which comes after six decades of independence — has meant that according to the Bill now before the standing committee of Parliament, land for mining would go through auction to the highest bidder.

If this comforts people worried about exploitation of mineral wealth “beyond one’s need”, the reason behind the land Bill is equally robust, though not likely to convince many.

Questions if the land acquisition law will wipe agriculture and end self-sufficiency of the country in food, are dismissed as ill advised worries by government officials. Surplus of food does not seem as attractive as a mineral surplus. In fact, there is even a preparedness for food dependence among policy makers, even as the country is making a Right to Food law. While it is argued by policy makers, who are passionate about the advantages of promoting mining, that the solution to end conflicts related to mining is not to end mining, they don’t apply the same logic to agriculture. It is just the opposite.

It is alright to share or barter excess minerals with the world. So, the government barters iron ore for something else, may be minerals that go into making cell phones!

But why would a country with a granary full of grains want it empty, so that it is forced to borrow or buy food from others in future? Can’t food be bartered for minerals, too?