Middle class Indians are changing the country’s eating habits. Poor farmers face the consequences of this. As rising incomes and globalisation take consumers away from diets that include rice, pulses and cereals, small farmers face new challenges. Incentives and policies that allow farmers to move away from subsistence agriculture are essential. Farmers can reap the benefits of these changes only if they become more integrated into the global food market.

Research from the Food and Agriculture Organization examines the change in the nature of food demand in India. Economic growth has meant rising incomes for the urban middle class. This has led to a change in consumer demand from basic necessities to ‘superior’ foods. Urbanites now prefer foods that are prevalent in the West to traditional staples. Globalisation has encouraged this transformation further. The researchers argue that this severing of the link between local diets and local availability of resources will impoverish small and marginal farmers unless measures are taken to protect them.

They show that the dietary transformation includes changes such as the following:

• Where there is a high rate of middle-class female employment, consumption of ready-made meals is higher as it cuts down on the long preparation time associated with traditional dishes.
• Though older Indians are less susceptible to advertisements of convenience food, McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Pepsi broaden their appeal to the younger generations by linking their products to Bollywood and sports stars.
• There is an increased consumption of energy-rich foods such as fats, oils, sugar and sweeteners and a decline in the foods like rice, pulses or other cereals.
• A wider consumption of fruits and vegetable is seen but this is largely due to increased demand for apples, potatoes and other fruits from colder countries.

These changes are irreversible. Experience elsewhere shows that households that adopt new and easier ways of consuming food quickly forget traditional methods and habits. The social, economic and public health implications of this switching to a new diet are many and ought to inform food policy decisions. Food standards put in place by large food distributors and supermarket chains may ensure higher levels of food hygiene but there are other health implications. An increasing incidence of obesity and such diet-related diseases as diabetes and coronary heart disease could be attributed to the increased consumption of highly calorific food. As fast-food outlets attract the middle classes, poorer urbanites are turning to copycat street vendors who mimic the branded products of fast-food outlets.

India’s most populous urban areas are near the coast so there is a risk that imported food or products from large Indian companies could satisfy changing food demand more readily than the same food from domestic smallholders. The state must intervene to protect the livelihoods of small farmers and simultaneously promote agricultural diversification and the competitiveness of cereal crop production. Policymakers must:

• recognise that unprecedented rural-urban migration flows may occur in the absence of policies to enable poor farmers to adapt to new realities
• learn from the experience of Mexico which has a state-run programme feeding market information and providing incentives to encourage small farmers to produce non-traditional farm products
• decentralise agricultural support to meet regionally specific needs for extension and marketing support to end the current bias to cereal production and rice production in government subsidies
• realise that as it is not sustainable in the long-run for governments to provide subsidies to sectors in ‘terminal decline’, a gradual redirecting of subsidies to expanding sectors would speed up the structural adjustment that is needed of Indian agriculture
• regulate contractual arrangements between supermarkets and small farmers
• investigate innovative ways of providing credit to farmers with insufficient or no collateral.

Source(s):
‘Globalisation of Indian diets and the transformation of food supply systems’ by Prabhu Pingali and Yasmeen Khwaja, ESA Working Paper No. 04-05, February 2004 Full document.

Funded by: Food and Agriculture Organization

id21 Research Highlight: 12 May 2004

Further Information:
Prabhu Pingali and Yasmeen Khwaja
Agricultural and Development Economics Division (ESA)
Economic and Social Department
Food and Agriculture Organization
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome
Italy

Tel: 39 06 5705 4217
Contact the contributor: prabhu.pingali@fao.org

Contact the contributor: yasmeen.khwaja@fao.org

Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)

Other related links:
'Diet transition may hit small farmers'

'Globalization, diet, and health: an example from Tonga'

'Agricultural Diversification: Opportunities and Constraints'