Introducing ragi in PDS will be tough to implement

Unless consumer preferences shift to climate resistant crops, goals associated with the policy won’t materialise

After three years, the Karnataka government has reintroduced ragi in its public distribution system (PDS). To feed the PDS system, the government has announced a procurement price much higher than the market price. The objectives are to improve nutrition and increase the climate-resilience of agriculture since ragi is a drought-resistant crop. In theory, if ragi were to displace water guzzlers such as sugarcane and paddy, it should help fight climate change. Making it available at a subsidy should increase consumption. Procurement at high MSP should reduce market uncertainty for farmers. However, there are no free lunches. Introducing ragi in the PDS is fraught with challenges pertaining to implementation.

Estimates from the ministry of agriculture show that for Karnataka, the costs of production per quintal of paddy are much lower and the yields much higher than ragi. To make ragi compete with other crops would require significant increases in the MSP, the costs of which might turn out to be prohibitive. The evidence is that farmers have not switched from crops such as sugarcane and paddy in any significant way. On the side of consumption, since millet is a naturally nutrient-dense food, making it available through the PDS should enable the poor to have higher consumption leading to improved nutrition.

Globally, one of the most commonly applied policies to improve nutrition among the poor is food subsidy. Yet the outcomes show that improved nutrition from food subsidy is not guaranteed and evidence is mixed.

With inclusion in the PDS, only limited changes in consumption might occur: Households generally tend to reduce their market purchases of food to offset the government transfer, thereby spending exactly the same amount on total food expenditure irrespective of the food transfer. One can learn from the experience of pulses. Households reduce the market purchase precisely by the amount by which PDS adds pulses to the basket.

In Karnataka, there is a strong consumer preference for rice. The PDS accounts for less than 25% of millets consumed by households. Hence the same kind of offsets can come into play in case of ragi as well. With strong preference for rice, households could sell off extra millets and buy their preferred grains.

Ragi or any product from which consumer preferences are shifting away can’t be revived through a patchwork of policies . The core of the problem is shifting consumer preferences. The promotion of ragi is a promising step but expecting it to deliver on farmer welfare, consumer welfare and environmental sustainability is asking too much from one crop.