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Irony runs its play every year in India as food grains rot in godowns while 23 crore people go hungry every day. GOI Monitor talks to food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma on the issues stalking agriculture and public distribution   

Born to the families of teachers, Nandan Saxena and Kavita Bahl always wanted to 'change the world'. Moving from English literature to mainstream journalism to independent film making, the husband-wife duo has developed a valued understanding of India's development model and how it fails us. Their film, 'Cotton For My Shroud', which focussed on suicides by cotton farmers in Vidarbha, got recognition at the 59th National Film Awards. Here they talk about their motivations, urban-rural divide, GM food and why we need to question the constructs foisted on us.

BJP-led goverment came up with PM-Kisan scheme to provide Rs 6,000 annual income support to small farmers while Congress party is promising Rs 72,000 for poor families through NYAY scheme. How will these help deal with consistent farm crisis and where will the money come from? How the new government can deal with indebtedness of farmers, loan waivers. Is there a way to implement market reforms that will ensure that farmers get the minimum support price for their crops? Food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma talks in details about these aspects, chalking out a roadmap for the next government.

“We will have 9 billion mouths to feed on this earth by 2050 and there will not be enough food for all of us which is why we need to make technological interventions like GM crop to produce more food.” At a time when food prices are soaring and

Keshari Sahu is a happy farmer. When scanty and irregular rainfall resulted in heavy damage to the Kharif paddy crop at his village in Balangir district of Odisha last year, he decided to grow Gurjee millet on his three acre farm instead of cotton.

In 2013, there were 2.6 million deep tubewells and/or borewells (deeper than 70 m) in India irrigating 12.68 million ha of land. However, around 12% of these borewells had either dried up or supplied less water than expected. Expenditure on borewells is one of the reasons for mounting farm debt. This is why artificial recharge of aquifers is essential. But exhaustive awareness campaigns promoting crop water budgeting and better market links for traditional crops are also required to ensure that the water saved is also used well.

Climate change talks are often centered on renewable energy. Nobody talks about making farming renewable. Around 50 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to chemical farming. It emits carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuel required to make chemicals. To prepare 1 kg of urea, 2 litre of diesel is burnt. When used in farms, urea produces nitrogen oxide which is 300 times more harmful than carbon dioxide for the earth. Instead, if you give the earth proper organic matter, it will give you lot of food. A 0.5 per cent increase in organic matter in the soil helps with 80,000 metre increase in moisture retention.