ABSTRACT
The national commission on farmers has emphasised the need for community-managed food and water security systems promoted with the help and oversight of Gram Sabhas. The Gram Sabha can serve as a Pani panchayat to ensure that rainwater is not only harvested, but is used in a sustainable and equitable manner. The trend now is to bypass these grass-root democratic structures, which represent the vision of Rajiv Gandhi for a peaceful and prosperous India, and to resort to depending on private trade to manage our food and water security systems. Building a sustainable food security system will require attention to both the availability of sufficient stocks and who controls them. The global wheat stocks are down and the political leadership of the country should decide how to ensure the food security of 1.1 billion children, women and men in an era where much of the foodgrain stocks will be controlled by national and international grain traders and cartels.
