ROLE OF FARMERS IN DEFENCE FOOD PROCUREMENT

ROLE OF FARMERS IN DEFENCE FOOD PROCUREMENT

Indian Defence:

India is always proud of its armed forces and right from the independence they are doing commendable job to safeguard the country from external forces. Be it with Pakistan or China our armed forces proved their exemplary skills in dealing with any situation and when it comes to helping neighbours like Bangladesh, Srilanka we played the role of big brother/mentor. Let all of salute our armed forces for performing the task of saving the nation at the cost of their lives.

When it comes to the international relations and peace accords,   we are conducting ourselves in a dignified manner and maintaining perfect balance.

Defence expenditure is one of the major budget items and despite huge pressure on finances, India is never compromising on defence budget allocations and always priority is given for allocation as well as releases.

Off late the capital expenditure in defence is coming down and certainly it’s a matter of concern.  We need to look for more funds to increase defence budget or look for savings in other line items so that we get more funds to spend on capital equipment.

The rations & other consumables is also another major budget item and defence ministry initiated some reforms to increase the efficiency of procurement.

Indian farmers:  

65 to 70% of Indian population is dependent on agriculture and its contribution to GDP is around 15%. This reflects the fact that the people engaged in agriculture are sustaining with meagre earnings and there is huge income disparity between agriculture and other sectors.

Despite unfavourable conditions in terms of capital infusion, size of holdings, investment in technology we still had shown considerable improvement in productivity and became largest milk producer in the world, first in millets and second in wheat and rice production and remain by and large as food sufficient nation despite huge population. This could be possible only due to our hard working selfless farmers.

Despite the uncertain incomes due to price fluctuations, fragmented holdings resulting in limitations in technology interventions, exploitation of input companies Indian farmer is performing the challenging task of providing food to nation and thus insuring our internal security. Let us salute our farmers for performing this herculean task without expecting much in return. 

There is need for looking at opportunities to increase farmers’ income through value addition to their produce and through providing direct marketing avenues. 

Defence food procurement systems:

The defence procurement system of food items is decentralised and till recently it used be on sealed tenders basis. It is observed that few suppliers form as cartel and establish links with the supply chain and bids are being managed as suited to the system.  It’s a fact that new entrants find it hard to enter the system and even if someone find the way, they will ensure that he fails and quickly windup the operations.

 There are many complaints from jawans that the quality of food is not up to mark and the indigenized taste or local flavour is missing. As most of the jawans come from rural backgrounds their taste with localized spices shall be part of the ration to satisfy their needs.  In fact during UP assembly elections the quality food services in armed forces are raised as one issue and none other than PM acknowledged it by stating that the government s seriously looking at improvements.

It’s really welcome move from defence ministry i.e., moving from existing tender/e procurement system to electronic auction/reverse auction method of procurement. As the participation is wider and bidders can be from any part of India and rates are visible on screen without bidder name giving others to compete on clearly visible competitive environment, it is certainly more transparent system and it’s a major breakthrough from the existing conventional system.

Initially the existing system thought that the new systems will fail and eventually they will go back to old system. As the ministry is determined to bring in transparency in procurement, proper steps were taken to change the entire supply chain mechanism and sent strong signals that if one has to do business with defence they have fallow in line with the system. Fair and equal opportunity is provided for existing suppliers also.

Operational issues in the system:

It was observed in defence rice procurement put in practise through online reverse auction, the participation is made limited to companies/entities with minimum rice yearly turnover of over 50 crores in last three years, thus eliminating most of the local millers, farmers, farmer producer companies etc.

The broken %, % of foreign material content, moisture % etc are clearly mentioned and its perfect.

The grain length to width ratio is given as criteria and it was mentioned as the variety shall match with “Parimal” rice. As the parimal is UP/Bihar variety and its long grain, the southern/Orissa/Chhattisgarh fine varieties like BPT which are short in size are not fitting into system. The coarse grains of south which are long but not popular as raw rice is fitting into the criteria and there is a danger of cheap quality getting into system at higher price and i am sure jawans will not be happy consuming this rice.

Rice quality is judged based on the age of the paddy. Paddy should be stored for a minimum period of six months before milling to get quality rice. More the age better the quality of rice and the taste of the cooked rice.   Nowhere in the tender conditions is the age of paddy is mentioned, giving scope for new rice which is much cheaper to find place and affect the quality of procurement.

The packing, food grade certification, brand name etc are given more importance again giving scope for only bigger millers/traders to participate.

The entire process looks to be more traders oriented (except moving from tender to online procurement) rather than giving scope for farmers/farmers organizations to participate in the system.

When these flaws /shortfalls were brought to the notice of the Colonel, who is in charge of the procurement operations, he could understand the issues and promised that he will address the same from his end in future. He also felt that the ministry is very rigid and it took three years to convince them to move from tender to online system.  

It is felt that farmers know the taste and quality much better than the millers/traders who procure from farmers and supply, hence farmers shall be given first choice to participate and supply.

How can we bring in farmers into system?

Ministry of rural development/ Ministry of Agriculture should initiate steps to interact with ministry of defence and explain them the need for supporting Indian farmers and make them part of mission “ doubling the farmers income by 2022” . If require PMO had to be roped in to see that thing move in farmers direction.

The World Bank funded poverty alleviation programs in different states have to focus their livelihood component and capacity building towards organising and sustaining farmers producer companies, by linking them with bank credit, milling facilities, storage systems and technology interface rather than mere number games. There is enough criticism that the World Bank funded training programs built capacities of star hotels, trainers, airlines rather than the target population. It is time o open the eyes and ears and take it as challenge and produce good organisations in field with real capacities to face challenges in the market.

Farmers has to organise themselves as small groups, create their own milling/storage facilities, approach local governments to help them with credit linkage, technology  and put pressure on them to give them market opportunities through linking them with defence and other institutional buyers where payments are secured.

The persons engaged in procurement, I am sure most of them might have come from farming families have to be sympathetic towards farmers and prevail on their system to ensure that farmers get their due share of the cake.

If this can be piloted for rice , the same can be extended to wheat, pulses, millets, milk, meat , fruits etc and ensure that jawans get connected to directly to kisans and bondage between nation’s external security and internal security will strengthen further , contributing towards much stronger nation.

TO ACHIEVE THE SAME, A STRONG DESIRE, WILL AND SELFLESS SERVICE HAS TO PREVAIL AND HAS TO CATCH THE EARS AND EYES OF NONE OTHER THAN OUR PRIME MINISTER SRI. NARENDRA MODI JI.

JAI JAWAN- JAI KISAN- JAI VIGNAN

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