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Four bumper harvests over the past five years have swelled food grain
production across the states of Punjab and Haryana, collectively known as
the "granary of India." In April, Food Corporation of India, the state-run agency responsible for purchasing grain, warned the government about the severe shortage of warehouses for the new crops being harvested. The government has been reluctant to allow grain exports for fear of political protests at a time when it has been dogged by double-digit inflation of food prices for most of the last year. India expects to export up to 7 million tons of rice this year and a similar amount in 2012-2013, according to government figures. Economists say selling the grain to the poor at subsidized prices too was not a viable solution because that would expand the fiscal deficit. Other activists have slammed the waste of food grain when nearly half of India's children under age 5 are malnourished. "The rotting of food grain is tantamount to criminal neglect in a country which has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition globally and the largest proportion of hungry people," said Biraj Patnaik, an adviser to India's Supreme Court on food policy issues.
[Associated
Press;
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