Beyond cereals

THE Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, conducted by the National Sample Survey Office from August 2022 to July 2023, shows that the per capita monthly household expenditure in the country has more than doubled in a decade. It is heartening that consumption in both rural and urban areas in 2022-23 was about 2.5 times what it was in 2011-12. Another key takeaway is that consumption in rural areas is growing at a faster rate than in urban ones — the gap, which was 84 per cent in 2011-12, has come down to 71 per cent. According to NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam, the data indicates that India’s poverty level has fallen below 5 per cent amid the rising prosperity of its citizens.

As per the survey, there has been a significant drop in the consumption of cereals. In rural areas, their intake as a share of the average MPCE (monthly per capita consumption expenditure) has gone down from 10.7 per cent in 2011-12 to less than 5 per cent. The trend is similar in urban areas — people are having more milk, fruits and vegetables. Thus, it is imperative to bolster the dairy sector, which needs to keep pace with the ever-rising domestic demand. In her Interim Budget speech earlier this month, the Finance Minister noted that despite being the largest producer of milk in the world, India continued to grapple with low productivity of milch animals. The great legacy of the ‘Father of the White Revolution’, Verghese Kurien, should serve as an inspiration for the stakeholders to arrest the slide.

The horticulture sector needs a Kurien as well to help farmers become self-sufficient and resilient to price volatility, which often makes them suffer losses and dump their produce on the roads. Encouraging cultivators to grow fruits and vegetables in accordance with the increasing demand can also give a fillip to the crop diversification programme.