Short essay on the Food budget of India

Food budget refers to the relationship between the requirement of food and the availability of food. If the available quantities of food do not satisfy the necessaries, it means country has faced food problem and there is lack of food in the country.

Food budget of India shows that, India has been suffering from food problem since a long time. It means food production of India is not according to the needs of the country.

The requirement of food has two sides -qualitative and quantitative. Every individual wants to take fish, meat, egg, milk and fruits to become healthy and efficient. Most of the people are not able to get these types of proteins and vitamins foods. It is known as qualitative deficiency from food front.

In short qualitative deficiency in food refers to deficiency in getting proteins and vitamins food. Food deficiency of India does not refer to qualitative deficiency. Deficiency in getting food grains like rice and wheat at just price is the problem of our country. It is known as the quantitative problem of food. It means most of our people are not able to get their minimum necessaries of life and what to speak about proteins and vitamins foods?

There are different reasons for which we find food problem in our country. Firstly, the population of our country is too large and it is rising too rapidly. With the rapid increase in population, food production does not increase according to the excess needs of the population. Secondly, due to implementation of five year plans, economic development is taking place for which income rises.

In developed countries, with the increase in the income of the people, they spend their income in the consumption of luxuries and save. But in developing countries, with the rise in the income of the people they spend a large portion of their income on the consumption of food grains as a result of which demand for food grains rises and price rises. If their income of the poor people increases, they are interested to consume rice, wheat dal instead of jaw, and millet.

Due to these above stated reasons, there is an increase in the demand for these superior goods. So on the one hand, there is a slow increase in the supply of food grains and on the other hand, there is a sharp rise in the demand for food, grains for which food problem is seen in our country.

Government has taken different steps to solve the food problem. The supply of food grains has been increased by increasing production, and demand for food grains has been reduced by implementing family planning programme. But all these measures will take time to make it successful. So to reduce the acuteness of food problem, Government has taken some short-term measures.

Import of food grains is now made by the Government during the peak time of food grains prices. Steps have been taken to provide storage facilities for food grains to get relief from artificial scarcity of food grains. Responsibility is now given to Food Corporation of India to store food grains to meet the excess demand. Food Corporation of India enables to control the food grain prices by supplying more at the time of high price. Fair price shop has been opened for the equal distribution of food grains. Necessary amount of food grains is provided to the people through ration card system.

Sources of Agricultural Finance

Cultivators of India need credit for different purposes. Firstly, farmers need short term credit to purchase fertilizers, seeds and to make payments to labourers. Short term credit is paid within 15 months; Farmers pay these loans after harvesting.

Except these above stated short-term credits for agricultural operations, they also need credit for medium term credit and long term credit. Farmers need medium term credit for purchasing bullocks, agricultural machineries and for repairing wells. The time-limit for medium term credit is 15 months to 5 years. If machines for agriculturists need to purchase valuable commodities like tractors, pump sets and power-tillers or digging of wells, purchasing of new lands and giving old loan huge funds are needed. For these activities farmers need huge credit and time-limit to pay the loan is more and it is known as long term credit. The time for the payment of long term credit is more than five years and in some cases it is less than 25 years.

There are different sources from which agriculturists get credit. These sources are mainly divided into two categories: these are non-institutional source and institutional source.