VISION
News & Views
December 1999
India’s Changing Diet Raises Concerns about Cereal Supplies
As Indians consume more and more livestock products like milk, meat, and eggs, the country’s demand for cereal for use as feed grain could soon outpace supply, according to a new 2020 discussion paper. But cereal shortages and trade imbalances can be avoided if India adopts appropriate agricultural policies, say G. S. Bhalla, Peter Hazell, and John Kerr, authors of Prospects for India’s Cereal Supply and Demand to 2020.The new paper projects India’s cereal demand and supply from 1993 to 2020 under various scenarios for income growth, consumption of cereal and livestock products, and agricultural production strategies. Although India is currently self-sufficient in cereals, “all that could change as the country’s population of 1 billion burgeons to 1.3 billion over the next two decades and consumers’ eating habits change,” says IFPRI’s Peter Hazell. Under the most plausible production scenario, the authors predict that the cereal gap—the difference between supply and demand—will fall somewhere between 36 and 64 million tons in 2020.
The authors presented their findings at a November 12 meeting in New Delhi. Discussants were Ashok Gulati of the Institute of Economic Growth, C. Ramasamy of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, and Abhijit Sen, chairman of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices. Discussions among the 70 participants included sharp disagreement not only on projections of future consumption of livestock products, but also on current consumption, confirming the need for further research. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has formed a committee to look more closely into the issues raised by the paper.
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