Not since independence have we had to face shortages of essential items of food as we do today. Excuses put forward by the government sound familiar but hollow. They are ascribed to either too little rain or too much rain. In short, we still remain at the mercy of the monsoon. Even when our farmers produce bumper crops, there are not enough silos for storing wheat or paddy.
Large stocks lie open in the fields or in mandis to rot in the rain.
We have also to come to terms with the fact that our best yielding lands have reached a plateau stage of production and cannot yield more no matter how much our agricultural scientists evolve new varieties of seeds or how much fertiliser or pesticides are used without causing irreversible damage to the soil. Meanwhile, our population goes on increasing by Mandelian leaps and bounds. With every new generation land holdings get divided and become smaller unable to sustain large families. Younger siblings have to find employment in industry. Or they take to crime.