Politics

Právo se najíst

Nov 1, 2013 Olivier De Schutter

NEW YORK – Potravinové systémy získaly globální ráz. Průměrné severoamerické jídlo dnes cestou z pole na talíř urazí 2400 kilometrů. S proměnou řetězce nabídky potravin se zintenzivnilo také úsilí zajistit, aby byly potraviny dostupné všem, a „právo na potraviny“ dnes funguje jako významná hnací síla změn vedených zdola nahoru.

Indie v září schválila převratný zákon o potravinové bezpečnosti, který zaručuje dvěma třetinám populace pět kilogramů dotované pšenice, rýže a dalších potravin měsíčně a zvyšuje podporu těhotných žen, dětí ve školním věku a starších osob. Ačkoliv v systému bezpochyby existují četné díry, zavedení právního nároku na potraviny je důležitý krok správným směrem.

Zmíněný pokrok, který dalece přesahuje hranice Indie, je vyústěním desetiletí globálního aktivismu, jenž zpochybnil logiku současných potravinových systémů jako nikdy předtím. Od přijetí Všeobecné deklarace lidských práv v roce 1948 se rozsáhle nárokovala politická práva typu svobody projevu, zatímco právo na potraviny se do značné míry zanedbávalo.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 2 Comments on this article

Procyon Mukherjee Nov 7, 2013

This happens to be my most favorite topic, how does the vanishing trick of subsidies leave the poor poorer; by all means a mere ‘Below Poverty Line’ estimate which is based on a Rs.30 per person per day consumption (50 cents/day) on food, does not absolve us of the responsibility of finding out whether this at all reaches the real poor. There are two leakages, the first is the quantity of that the Food Corporation states it has delivered to people, rich or poor, versus what the people actually receive (NSS data). Both in 2009-10 and 2011-12, this leakage amounted to Rs 30,000 crore (with quantities valued at market prices of food-grains); this is mainly theft, food rotting (the more the better as it could serve the country liquor industry), PDS food diversion to non-ration shops, etc. The second leakage is food going to the non-poor. In 2011-12, the non-poor receiving a food subsidy were at an average percentile level of 64. As it happens, this is near identical to the average consumption percentile level of the non-poor receiving NREGA payments for imaginary work. This one accounted for Rs 22,000 crore in 2009-10, and a much larger Rs 31,000 crore in 2011-12. Adding up the expenditures on NREGA (Rs 31,000 crore) and food subsidies (Rs 74,000 crore), the government spent about Rs 105,000 crore in 2011-12. The poor received only Rs 14,000 crore, or just 13 per cent of the money meant for them! The Right to Eat must not leave a continuing bonanza for those who thrive on the rising leakage of the system.
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Procyon Mukherjee Nov 7, 2013

For the noble cause of ‘Right to Food’, I would only be happy to contribute together with the state, had not the beguiling rhetoric not obscured the central fallacy, which is captured in the statistic that Rs.105,000 Crores of subsidies, which is roughly $17 Billion, reaching the body of poor would have meant Rs.3000 ($50) per capita per year in food alone, which by any insidious argument would have petered the lack of vital calories by whatever small amount. But our poor do not even get that small amount of respite, thanks to the growing menace that had made ‘diminished dignity’ an institution for the poor. The task therefore is to improve the transmission mechanism, not the quantum of release.
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