Problem Narrative
India in the second largest country in the world in terms of its population. This translates into feeding more mouths in India than anywhere else in the world. Hence the production of various food grains, which for a country that is mainly vegetarian, is one of the prime concerns. Inspite of the green revolution in India and the increase of food grain production overall, the per-capita availability of food grain has diminished over the years. One of the chief problems is the rising prices of food. Hence the impact of the per-capita availability of food grains is mainly felt by the poorer and more vulnerable sections of the society. Indians today are consuming far less protein than they used to. Pulses is one of the most important sources of protein for a mainly vegetarian diet. India is one of the largest producers and consumers of pulses in the world. However the per capita domestic production of pulses has dropped from 63 gms in 1970 to a very low 36 gms in 2008.
Behavior Over Time
As you can see from the above graphs, that even though the overall production of food grains has increased over the years, the high growth of population has led to overall decrease in the per-capita availability of various food grains.
Relevance of a Systems Perspective
Foodgrain availability is an ideal systems problem for analysis. The problem over time has been that the population of India is increasing at a much more rapid pace than the increase in foodgrain production. There are multiple factors affecting the availability of food grains. Constant rising population translates into more mouths being fed every day, this creates a gap in food grains supply and demand. Supply doesn't match up to the rapidly increasing demand. Still in effort to meet the demand, food grain production increases in hopes to catch up to the demand. However the food production is not increasing as rapidly as the population, hence the per capita availability of foodgrain is still diminishing. This inturn increases the supply demand gap even further. Another factor is limited availability of cultivable land and increasing the yields from cultivable land. Government’s basic concern of feeding poor people and increasing food grain production while developing more urban areas for the overall growth of the country are the competing goals at play.
Study Objective and Questions to be Addressed
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum of 80 gms of pulses consumption per person per day for Indians for their daily dose of nutrition. The main purpose of this research is how to achieve these goals to meet the demand supply mismatch. According to the WHO recommendations and the expected growth of Indian population, India will need to produce substantially more foodgrains. The main concern is that the availability of cultivable land is constant due to geographically restraints and on the contrary reducing due to development of urbanization and infrastructure. So with the development of various technologies why is India’s foodgrain production still lagging behind? The overall production of foodgrains have increased, but why is it not able to keep up with the population growth? How will India manage its growth of foodgrain production to not only mend the current supply demand gap but also keep up with the ever increasing population of India?
Hence, in my opinion, India will either have to double its acreage at the current yield levels or will have to double the yield at the fixed acreage. Since both these alternatives are not feasible in isolation, a synergistic effect needs to take place where a combination of both is the eventual goal.
Dynamic Hypothesis
India is the second most populous nation in the world. Hence to feed its huge population, it needs to grow an equally large number of foodgrains. However, even with the rise of food production over the years, India in not able to keep up with the ever rising demand created by the ever increasing population. Currently, India is a foodgrain deficient nation and does not produce sufficient food grain for its own population. Various steps have been taken by government to step up the production of foodgrains but it has failed to match up to the rising demands. This has created a big supply demand gap which will continue to grow if concrete steps are not taken by the government.
In the first loop, the main actors at play here is the rising population and the Government of India. As described in the loop below, as the population of India is rising on a fast pace, it is creating a big supply demand gap in food grains. The current capacity of the food grain production is not able to match up to the rising demand.
Food grain is one of the most important source of nutrition for a majority of people in India. Hence in an effort to reduce the supply demand gap, the government issues various policies for food grains. Most of the government policies in the past, like the ‘Green Revolution’ in the 1960’s, have been regarding food grain production. These policies results in increase production of food grain. Once the production of food grains and the supply for food grains rises, the supply demand mismatch reduces accordingly.
Ideal situation is a reinforcing loop, which behaves as a best case scenario in this issue. The increase in food production leads to the intention of increasing the food-grain inventory. Having a greater food inventory reduces the supply demand gap causing the prices for food grain to come down significantly. This in turn increases the overall food grain sale. The higher food grain sales gives farmers a greater monetary incentive to produce more food grains and thus encourages them to purchase more farmland. Thus the overall effect of higher sales, more farmland for production and greater incentive for farming causes the overall production of food grains to rise.
As described in the Loop 3(ideal situation), as the farmers see more profits in producing food grains, there is a greater incentive for farming, which leads to more purchase of farmland. But the overall growth of the country lies in industrialization and urbanization. The focus of a developing country is to increase urbanization and industrial production. Thus with the rising farmlands, there is no available land for urbanization of the country. Hence the Government will also incorporate policies for the urbanization of India. This loop is trying to display the two competing goals of increasing farmland vs increasing land for urbanization.
India in the second largest country in the world in terms of its population. This translates into feeding more mouths in India than anywhere else in the world. Hence the production of various food grains, which for a country that is mainly vegetarian, is one of the prime concerns. Inspite of the green revolution in India and the increase of food grain production overall, the per-capita availability of food grain has diminished over the years. One of the chief problems is the rising prices of food. Hence the impact of the per-capita availability of food grains is mainly felt by the poorer and more vulnerable sections of the society. Indians today are consuming far less protein than they used to. Pulses is one of the most important sources of protein for a mainly vegetarian diet. India is one of the largest producers and consumers of pulses in the world. However the per capita domestic production of pulses has dropped from 63 gms in 1970 to a very low 36 gms in 2008.
Behavior Over Time
http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ghosh-graph51.jpg
http://www.growmorepulses.com/upload/images/pulses_nutrition_graph.gif
As you can see from the above graphs, that even though the overall production of food grains has increased over the years, the high growth of population has led to overall decrease in the per-capita availability of various food grains.
Relevance of a Systems Perspective
Foodgrain availability is an ideal systems problem for analysis. The problem over time has been that the population of India is increasing at a much more rapid pace than the increase in foodgrain production. There are multiple factors affecting the availability of food grains. Constant rising population translates into more mouths being fed every day, this creates a gap in food grains supply and demand. Supply doesn't match up to the rapidly increasing demand. Still in effort to meet the demand, food grain production increases in hopes to catch up to the demand. However the food production is not increasing as rapidly as the population, hence the per capita availability of foodgrain is still diminishing. This inturn increases the supply demand gap even further. Another factor is limited availability of cultivable land and increasing the yields from cultivable land. Government’s basic concern of feeding poor people and increasing food grain production while developing more urban areas for the overall growth of the country are the competing goals at play.
Study Objective and Questions to be Addressed
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum of 80 gms of pulses consumption per person per day for Indians for their daily dose of nutrition. The main purpose of this research is how to achieve these goals to meet the demand supply mismatch. According to the WHO recommendations and the expected growth of Indian population, India will need to produce substantially more foodgrains. The main concern is that the availability of cultivable land is constant due to geographically restraints and on the contrary reducing due to development of urbanization and infrastructure. So with the development of various technologies why is India’s foodgrain production still lagging behind? The overall production of foodgrains have increased, but why is it not able to keep up with the population growth? How will India manage its growth of foodgrain production to not only mend the current supply demand gap but also keep up with the ever increasing population of India?
Hence, in my opinion, India will either have to double its acreage at the current yield levels or will have to double the yield at the fixed acreage. Since both these alternatives are not feasible in isolation, a synergistic effect needs to take place where a combination of both is the eventual goal.
Dynamic Hypothesis
India is the second most populous nation in the world. Hence to feed its huge population, it needs to grow an equally large number of foodgrains. However, even with the rise of food production over the years, India in not able to keep up with the ever rising demand created by the ever increasing population. Currently, India is a foodgrain deficient nation and does not produce sufficient food grain for its own population. Various steps have been taken by government to step up the production of foodgrains but it has failed to match up to the rising demands. This has created a big supply demand gap which will continue to grow if concrete steps are not taken by the government.
In the first loop, the main actors at play here is the rising population and the Government of India. As described in the loop below, as the population of India is rising on a fast pace, it is creating a big supply demand gap in food grains. The current capacity of the food grain production is not able to match up to the rising demand.
Food grain is one of the most important source of nutrition for a majority of people in India. Hence in an effort to reduce the supply demand gap, the government issues various policies for food grains. Most of the government policies in the past, like the ‘Green Revolution’ in the 1960’s, have been regarding food grain production. These policies results in increase production of food grain. Once the production of food grains and the supply for food grains rises, the supply demand mismatch reduces accordingly.
As observed in the first loop, the rising population has caused the government to issue various policies to reduce the supply demand gap by increasing the foodgrain production. With increase in food grain production, food grain production per capita also increases. However, even with higher food grain production, due to substantial rise in population every year there is always more per capita food grain need and people being fed than per capita production of food grain. Even with various government policies the supply demand gap grows with the rising population of India and continues to do so.
Ideal situation is a reinforcing loop, which behaves as a best case scenario in this issue. The increase in food production leads to the intention of increasing the food-grain inventory. Having a greater food inventory reduces the supply demand gap causing the prices for food grain to come down significantly. This in turn increases the overall food grain sale. The higher food grain sales gives farmers a greater monetary incentive to produce more food grains and thus encourages them to purchase more farmland. Thus the overall effect of higher sales, more farmland for production and greater incentive for farming causes the overall production of food grains to rise.
This looks great! I think there might be one more loop that is mostly using variables from the Supply Demand Food Grain loop, but includes Food Grain Production per Capita too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, don't forget to define pulses in the introduction part of your Problem Articulation.
I did have a question about the variable "People being fed" - this is talking about the people who need to eat? It looks like you are saying that as more people get fed, more food is needed. I think maybe another variable or a different name would work better. That is, if you are talking about populations of people. If not, disregard that!