The Grand Wheat Scam

Vincent van Gogh's The Fields (Wheat Fields), thought to be one
of his last paintings is expected to fetch $28 million - $35 million
when it goes to auction later this year

So the people friendly Government wanted to curb inflation. Among other things, they refused to increase the minimum support price of wheat (the price at which food is purchased for the public distribution system from the farmers). Now, wheat farmers are hardly the capitalist pig types. Inflation impacts them too. Econ 101 ensured that while production went up, supply went South. What does the Government do? Import wheat at a price way more than the MSP the farmers had been demanding. Read in details about the scam in this Tehelka report. BJP has even published a booklet on the scam.

Wait! There is more. If this perversity in wheat-supply management was not enough, the wheat imported turned out to be of poor quality, cattle-feed grade.

CNN-IBN report on the inferior quality of wheat being imported for the poor has sent shock waves the country. Being imported at an exorbitant rates, the wheat is not even fit for animals to eat. What’s worse, its being imported at a very high price from Australia. CPM politburo member Brinda Karat, who has been leading a campaign against wheat import, congratulated CNN-IBN for exposing the quality of wheat being procured. [link]

Funny how this clueless career commie is actually congratulating a private news channel for unearthing information she was supposed to keep abreast of.

Worm-eaten, full of dirt, used as animal feed - this is the food for the poor, the red winter wheat imported from Australia. What is imported is actually the shell of the red winter wheat. It is not definitely the best kind of wheat available and is being given out through the public distribution system for the poorest, who can't afford to buy wheat from the market.

Says a local of Khandwa, Gulabo, "This wheat is very bad. We have never eaten it before and the children complain of indigestion.By the time we clean the grains, 14 kilos becomes just 11 kilos," says Kailash. [link]

Divested of all media spin, it leaves only two cards for the UPA Government to choose from: one says "massive scam", the other - "gross incompetence".

As if throwing the wheat supply out of gear was not enough, the Govenrment has now turned its focus on rice.

The paddy farmers of Haryana and Punjab are having sleepless nights for the last five days following the rice mill owners' refusal to make any purchase in mandis till the Central government lifts its ban on the export of superior varieties of rice.

In view of this tug of war between exporters and the government, heaps of paddy are lying unsold and farmers have to stay put at mandis to protect the produce till it is disposed of. These varieties shed about 15% to 25% of the price during the last one week when the ban was imposed. Maximum decline is noticed in Pusa-1121 variety, which is in great demand in the international market. Sham Sunder, a farmer, said he sold Pusa-1121 variety for Rs 2,100 per quintal last week but now its is not fetching more than Rs 1,500. [link]

So the Government tends to believe that by banning exports of high grade rice (usually way beyond the affordability of the aam aadmi anyway), they will increase the overall supply.

Not all politicians are so far removed from reality though.

Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has asked the Centre to lift the ban on rice export as "the step was detrimental to the interests of the country’s farmers." In a letter to prime minister Manmohan Singh, the CM said the decision to this effect was not only anti-farmer but also against the basic principles of sound economic planning.

Badal sounded a word of caution that if the Centre continues to take such anti-farmer stance, the day was not very far off when the country would plunge into deep food crisis thereby, jeopardising national food security. The CM said if the Centre was unable to give remunerative minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers, it has no moral right to deny them the opportunity to export rice.

Badal urged both the prime minister and the Union agriculture minister to review the decision in the larger public interest because it would not only hamper the interests of the farming community, but also alienate them from producing paddy in future. [link]

Let us finish this post on a positive note, shall we? Well, as it happens, more than 75% of all food procured by the PDS gets stolen anyway. Why is this good news? Think about it.