Healing soils in India

HO WOULD HAVE imagined that India, which lived from "ship to mouth" with heavy dependence on food aid under the US Public Law 480 programme in the 1960s, would emerge as the world's largest rice exporter?

- ASHOK GULATI, LEONARDUS VERGUTZ, & RITIKA JUNEJA Respectively distinguished professor at ICRIER, chief scientific officer at OCP Nutricrops, and research fellow at ICRIER

HO WOULD HAVE imagined that India, which lived from "ship to mouth" with heavy dependence on food aid under the US Public Law 480 programme in the 1960s, would emerge as the world's largest rice exporter? In FY25, India exported 20.2 million tonnes (MT) of rice in a global market of 61 MT. It also runs the world's largest food distribution programme—the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana—providing 5 kg of free rice or wheat per person per month to more than 800 million people. And still the Food Corporation of India holds about 57 MT of rice—the highest stock in 20 years and nearly four times the buffer norm of 13.54 MT as of July 1.

Poverty has reduced dramatically too. The extreme poverty headcount (earning less than $3/day at 2021 purchasing power parity) dropped from 27.1% in 2011 to just 5.3% in 2022. Notwithstanding these achievements, malnutrition among children remains a challenge. The National Family Health Survey?5 (2019-21) reports that 35.5% children under five years of age are stunted, 32.1% are underweight, and 19.3% are wasted. Clearly, food security in India has evolved beyond merely ensuring caloric sufficiency—it now must encompass nutritional security as well.