Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
their markets as agriculture commercialized, leading to industrialization
and the transition to capitalism on the global scale.14
As a result, the flow of food changed during the industrial era. This
flow no longer responded to local needs but was shaped by free markets,
speculation, and even hoarding on the global scale. The world market
now set food prices, and food went to those who could afford to buy it
from middlemen and traders
—not necessarily to those who were hungry.
Moreover, food shortages in one region, perhaps due to drought, could
elevate prices in another region. W hen food prices rose, however, farmers
predominantly growing wheat and coton in countries like India would
become unable to feed themselves.
During World War II, India experienced another series of food short-
ages and famines due to a conjuncture of factors that limited foreign and
domestic food supplies of rice. In the spring of 1942, Japanese military
forces invaded the neighboring country of Burma, cuting of supplies of
rice to southwestern India, which had become reliant on Burmese im-
ports. A few months later, a cyclone hit the rice-growing region of Bengal
in northern India, destroying paddy fields and the supply of rice to the
northeastern parts of India. To make things worse, fungal disease and
erratic monsoons further undermined food stocks in Bengal. Speculation
and the hoarding of food ensued, leading to the rise of food prices and
food shortages all over the subcontinent. Government administrators im-
posed a ration system throughout the country, yet between one and three
million people died in the infamous Bengal famine alone.15
Following the war, India gained independence from Britain. Neverthe-
less, its food shortages continued. Independence also meant the partition
of India into two separate countries: India and Pakistan. This political
division of the subcontinent left the new country of India with a smaller
proportion of land under grain production and a larger population to
feed.16 Exacerbating the situation was the fact that the entire region's ex-
isting problems with food shortages were still unresolved.
As a result, ever since its establishment as a sovereign, independent
country, India has had to cope with famine and food insecurity. Many
of its national policies and planning processes have therefore fixated on
food production, and intensifying the political preoccupation with food
