?[In India] 43% of children under the age of 5 are malnourished. In sub-Saharan Africa, the figure is 28%; it’s 7% in China, to which India is so often compared. The Indian govt’s own data show that 800 million Indians live on Rs. 20 (about $0.50) a day. Half of those are farmers who produce food that they, for the most part, cannot afford to eat thanks to the demands of speculators and affluent urban consumers.
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Since the late ’90s, government food policy has promoted breakneck modernization, withdrawing support for local agriculture even while attempting to bring the Indian people into a more globalized food market as consumers and producers. This has involved the entire spectrum of food. Government-operated agricultural institutes emphasize patented, genetically modified crops produced by behemoths such as Monsanto and support attempts by Walmart and its Indian counterparts to take over the retail and wholesale systems. These changes have been welcomed by the 200 million members of the upper and middle classes, largely concentrated in the metropolises.
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