1 Uncorrected/ Not for publication- 08.12.2009 SSS-AKG/11.00/1A ...

165Uncorrected/ Not for publication- 08.12.2009I had the privilege of mentioning to you, which carried a specialsupplement only two weeks ago, said, as far as India is concerned, howdo we minimise 35 per cent waste in fruits and vegetables and 44 percent waste in a whole range of other crops.(Contd. by hk/3e)HK/3e/4.25SHRI N.K. SINGH (CONTD.): This can be done by, of course,concentrating on something which he is doing, but accelerating it interms of marketing linkages, prolonging the shelf life and enabling theadvantages of cold chain to small and medium farmers. This will givesome short-term returns which will be very gainful and beneficial. Icome, Sir, to some long-term factors since the time available to me isvery short. Fortunately, investments in agriculture, which in a 25-yearscycle went down significantly to just 1.2 per cent, has cropped up in thelast 18 months. It has again gone up from about 1.2 per cent to 8 percent. Will it make up the past? Historically speaking, perhaps not. ButI think along with the challenge of making up the investment deficiency,one sad part is, Sir, that the per capita availability of foodgrains in thelast five years, and particularly, in the last two years, to the poorestpopulation of the world, has gone down. That is why, Mr. Minister, I amsure you are aware that the FAO Conference on Hunger, that we justconcluded one week ago, ended its last Resolution to say, "Tonight inthe world more than one billion people will sleep hungry." As far asIndia is concerned, in the last 18 months, 250 million people, accordingto the UN statistics, have gone under deeper poverty. That is one ofthe factors that we need to attack ourselves. We need to attack