Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Bangladesh, which, although not strictly enforced, are still in existence. In ad-
dition, public food agencies in both countries had enjoyed preferential access
to railway transportation for years. While Bangladesh reformed this policy in
the late 1990s, FCI in India continues to enjoy it. In fact, the private traders get
only sixth preference if they want to transport their grain through Indian rail-
ways (Deininger and Deininger 2001).
Changes in the Size and Scale of Operations of Food Marketing Agencies
Compared to the early years of the Green Revolution, parastatals' (govern-
ment's) market shares, measured by the percentage of procurement to total pro-
duction, have increased significantly in India, modestly in Bangladesh, and de-
clined in the Philippines and Pakistan (Table 2.7). The most striking example
is India, where public procurement of rice and wheat has increased from about
10 percent of production in the 1970s to as much as a quarter of production in
recent years.
While public procurement has declined in Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Pakistan, total public distributions have actually increased, as governments in
these countries imported larger volumes of foodgrains to supply their public
distribution programs. For example in the Philippines, although rice-equivalent
paddy procurement by NFA was less than 3 percent of market production in the
1990s, public distribution accounted for more than 10 percent of total food sup-
ply.
17
This situation is very different from that in the 1970s, when procurement
(6.13 percent) was larger than distribution (4.69 percent). The same is also true
for Indonesia, where procurement as a percentage of production (4.51 percent)
was less than half of BULOG's distribution as percentage of total supply of rice
(11.83 percent). In Pakistan, not only has total distribution increased, public
procurement as a percentage of total production (by provincial food agencies
and PASSCO) continues to be large, ranging between 23 and 35 percent of to-
tal wheat supply over the past three decades (Table 2.7).
Another way to assess changes in the size of public price stabilization ef-
forts is to examine total number of employees, but unfortunately, such time
series data are not available for all countries. However, the data that we have sug-
gest that the total number of employees in food logistics agencies has increased
in India and decreased in Bangladesh. In India, FCI started its operation with
only 3,904 employees in 1965, which increased to about 29,000 by 1970, more
than 50,000 by 1980, and about 65,000 in the 1990s.
18
In addition, Indian food
17. The total supply of food, taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations Statistical Database (FAOSTAT; FAO 2004) includes food for human consumption only
and is defined as the sum of total production, net import, and change in domestic stock.
18. The numbers for 1965 through the 1980s are from Chopra (1981); World Bank (1999)
reported 65,000 regular employees and 175,000 casual workers. However, according to FCI's sta-
tistics on its website, it now has about 55,000 regular employees.
