SOUTH ASIA: A LONG WAY TO GO

The recently published 2012 Global Food Policy Report, the second issue of IFPRI’s annual flagship report, shows that South Asia has been struggling to improve their agricultural performances when comparing with its counterparts in Southeast and East Asia. The average annual agricultural growth stayed a little above 3 percent over the last decade, with no sign of accelerating. As the home to over one fifth of world’s population, South Asia produced 13 percent of global agricultural output in 2009, a slight increase from 10 percent in 1960s. 

It’s All about Policy

Despite a lack of comprehensive agricultural reforming, 2012 observed a few notable policy decisions and actions made at country and regional levels:

• Seed Bank: Adequate quality seed is crucial when it comes to maintain and increase agricultural productivity.  The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Seed Bank, which was established by SAARC in late 2011, intends to ensure the regional seed security reserves and addresses the regional seed shortages in the case of natural disasters.
• Fertilizer Subsidy: Fertilizer has also played an important role in increasing crop production for South Asia. To increase agricultural production (especially of rice and maize) during the rainy season of 2012 as a consequence of inadequate fertilizer access, the government of Nepal has decided to double its fertilizer subsidy in 2013 to boost domestic fertilizer business and overcome the price imbalance between India and Nepal. Questions remain about how Nepal’s new policy would impact the food security in the country.
• Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): India’s modern food retail is booming. In 2012 the government of India finally approved FDI in multi-brand retails with a cap of 51 percent that could come from foreign companies, an encouraging sign that could improve the food value chain in India and benefit the overall food system.  
• South-South Cooperation: The 4^th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in 2012 conveyed the commitments of these five emerging economies to improve knowledge sharing and technology learning, ensure food security, adapt agriculture to climate change, and enhance trade and investment.

Besides these efforts, there was also a bad news:  a committee constituted by the Indian Supreme Court recommended to impose a 10-year moratorium on field trials of any genetically modified (GM) crops. The recommendations are yet to be accepted but there are fears that favoring it will have negative impact on the agricultural research as well as technology innovation in the long run. Debates about it will be continuing.