Food Security in India

KEVIN JOSE

Food security thus is a broadly scoped subject which measures the security aspect of an individual or household through interaction with a broad range and socio-economic factors.

A nation achieves food security when all three pillars are maintained at a sufficient and stable scale. The definition and pillars of food security act as a gauge for India to retrospect its current standing in terms of food security. It is unfortunate that India, a country conquering the echelon of economic growth, also happens to be one of the most malnourished nations in the world. Over 33 lakh children in India are malnourished and more than half of them fall in the severely malnourished category. It is also to be noted that a significant number of pregnant and lactating females suffer from diseases arising due to malnourishment such as iron deficiency anemia. The Indian government recognizing the implications of the issue has put forth many reforms in forms of acts and schemes to achieve the safe standards of nutrition and food security. The National Food Security Act(NFSA), National Nutrition Strategy(NNS) and National Nutrition Mission(NNM) are key steps in this regard. However,the threats of food insecurity and malnourishment vary geographically therefore the steps taken against the problems require region-specific investment and should be backed with evidencebased interventions.

The concept of food security has changed considerably over the past decades and this is reflected in the approach adopted by India in tackling the problem. Until the 1980s, a period ravaged by famines and droughts, India largely prioritized food availability and aimed to achieve staple food self-sufficiency.

The green revolution, increased public investment in the agricultural sector, the constitution of the public distribution system, better availability of credit and subsidies to farmers, helped India achieve remarkable progress

 Availability of food: The pillar includes the aggregate availability of food in a nation, including its domestic production and external imports(commercial imports and food aids).

 Access to food: Accessibility of food to a household, made available through livelihood and sourced from channels such as home production, market or other sources.

 Utilization of food: Appropriations of food material to have optimum utilization so as to suffice the specific dietary and health needs of an individual or household.

in this regard. Though the actions resulted in surplus food production, the problems of food access and malnutrition remained large.

Post, 1980s one can see a shift in policies, with India adopting the entitlement-based approach towards food security. The approach rightly recognizes that the mere availability of food does not necessarily get translated into accessibility of food. Inputs from scholars like Sen played a crucial role in development of the approach, channeling the shift of focus of policies from addressing national food security to individual level food and nutrition security. The recognition of accessibility to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities also became crucial parts of the approach.

The following sections of the essay discusses the three pillars of food security within the Indian context and gives a brief overview of various schemes and policies adopted to curb food insecurity and malnourishment.

Availability of food in an adequate and consistent manner to the general population, without compromising on the nutritional requirements, is definitely the first step towards malnutrition free India.

The development of the agriculture sector was pivotal for India in achieving this goal, enabling its transformation from a food deficient nation to being a self-sufficient nation. But the transition to a top food grain producing country has not altered its ground reality,where large swathes of the population is still affected by acute hunger and food insecurity.

As mentioned above, the translation

The recent production and consumption trends of India as well as schemes to promote food production and food availability are summarized below: of food availability to accessibility is imperative in ensuring Food security. The consumption trend of nutritious food is an important indicator of the success of the food availability in a country. As per NSSO consumer expenditure data of 2011-12, rural and urban households spend 48.6% and 38.5% of their monthly income on food.

 Rice and wheat constitute around 80% of the total food grains production. These two crops form the bulk of Indian agriculture and provide food, and employment to millions of people. But the recent production trends reveal the declining trend in the net availability of these two crops. The trend can be explained by the pressure from the demand side. With a nation of growing population it is essential to maintain the demand-supply balance of food crops.

 India is the largest producer of pulses in the world. Nevertheless, it also happens to be the largest producer of pulses in the world. There needs to be a proactive measure to calibrate the rising imports of pulses, substituting it with domestic production. Providing MSP to all types of pulses in a timely manner could be a welcome move. Distribution of the pulses through the PDS system can increase the accessibility of these nutritious grains to the wider public.

 Some of the schemes initiated by the Government include Soil Health Card scheme, Pradan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, which aims to improve irrigation and water availability, and Pradan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, which provides crop insurance to farmers in events of crop failures.

The high out of pocket expenditure indicates the economic stress borne by a family to acquire food. Casual labour and people from SC,ST and OBC category were the most vulnerable social categories in terms of per capita per day consumption of energy. Though not free from shortcomings, the Public Distribution System has been a reliable source of food to larger sections of the population across India and has acted as a safeguard against food insecurity distributing essential food products at subsidized rates.

Impacts of inadequate nutrition spreads not only at an individual level but also at macro level outcomes. As a nutrition deficient mother produces a child who has to grow in the same nutrition deficient environment, eventually growing up as a constituent of a weak workforce, stalling the growth of the country. Malnutrition thus restricts cognitive and physical development, eventually leading to low educational and economic attainment, fuelling poverty.

Various measures of Malnutrition are stuniting(low height-for-age), wasting(low weight-for-height) and underweight(weight-for-age), which is a composite index of height-forage and weight-for-height.

India is a land of dichotomy. The dichotomy persists in the case of

Nutrition

The system is a modified version of PDS, and focuses on poorer sections of the population. It was piloted as a joint initiative by the central and state governments. The system has seen many improvements, such as end-to-end computerization intending to improve the last mile delivery of its benefits to the poor.

The technological upgrade also improves supply chain efficiency and reduces leakages. With the incidence of covid pandemic, the system was strengthened with the adoption of direct benefit transfer system.

It is the world’s largest school meal programme aimed to attain the goal of universalization of primary education. Tamil Nadu was the first state to implement the program. The scheme in addition to its goal of improving the nutritional status of children was also pivotal in increasing the enrollment rates of students in school.

The program intends to provide a free supply of food grains and products in the form of lunch to children. The scheme has been revamped under the name of PM-POSHAN from 2021. The scheme, in addition to providing nutritional food to children, will now also monitor the nutritional level of children.

The scheme was launched on 2nd October 1975, as one of the largest programme to improve nutritional and health status of children(0 to 6 years), and pregnant & lactating women.The scheme provides nutritional supplements, awareness, child immunization, and consistent health check-up services. The scheme has four components, namely:

1. Early Childhood Care Education & Development

2. Care & Nutrition Counseling

3. Health Services

4. Community Mobilization Awareness, Advocacy & Information, Education and Communication

The scheme which is centrally sponsored will provide its beneficiaries with services such as supplementary nutrition, health & nutrition check-up, immunization, nutritional and health awareness, and referrals.

These services are provided from Anganwadi centers established mainly in rural areas and staffed with frontline workers. The anganwadi services( under the umbrella ICDS) is a centrally sponsored scheme and the central government releases grantin-aid to the states and UTs on a cost sharing basis.

NFSA is one of the most important policies to address hunger and food security in India. NFSA mandates ensuring access to adequate quantities of quality food at affordable prices for the vulnerable population of India.

The act bought all three food based safety nets under one umbrella and changed the coverage and entitlements under TPDS. NFSA aims at a coverage of 75% of rural and 50% of urban population. The NFSA also food security too. Over the years, the Government of India has accorded the highest priority to combat malnutrition among its people through the introduction of Targeted Public Distribution System, Mid-day Meal Scheme (MDM), National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013, Swachh Bharat Mission, Mission Indradhanush and POSHAN Abhiyan. But India is also the country specifies nutritional standards for children, pregnant and lactating mothers. It stipulates that the nutritional standards are to be met by nutritious hotcooked meals in accordance with the ICDS for children in lower and upper primary classes under the MDM Scheme and for pregnant women and lactating mothers to be met by providing ‘Take Home Rations’.

The National Nutrition Mission (NNM) is a technology driven platform, which will monitor the growth of children as well as check the pilferage of food rations provided at Anganwadies.

The mission was coordinated as a joint effort of various ministries. The mission is an apex body responsible for monitoring, supervising, fixing targets and guiding nutritions related interventions. The mission intends to use technology at the core for real time monitoring of services delivered by Anganwadi workers and frontline community health workers of ASHAs and auxiliary nurse midwives. Further, it aims to promote use of smartphones by anganwadi workers and tablets by their supervisors in mapping nutrition or growth levels of beneficiaries. The NNM strives to create synergy among different schemes, ensure better monitoring, issue alerts for timely actions and encourageStates/UTs to perform, guide and supervise the line of ministries to achieve the targeted goals.

which houses a significant population of the world's malnourished. sections of the population like women, children, SC/STs and disabled people are relatively more vulnerable and need special attention. Effective implementation of additional programs and policies for these vulnerable groups would accelerate the overall growth and development of the nation.