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Food security means availability of food and access to it for everyone. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants get access to the food in time and do not afraid of starvation. The India planners, right from the beginning, realized the need to attain self –sufficiency in food grains as one of the important goals of planning. Food security implies physical and economic access to the food at household level in affordable quality and quantity. Food security refers the ready availability of adequate safe food with dignity and socially acceptable manner. In developing countries like India, often 70% or more of the population lives in rural areas. Agricultural development provides a livelihood to the people in smallholder farmers and landless people and opportunity to stay in their communities. Food security in country like India becomes more important because the land holding by the farmers here is very less and people have to depend on others for procuring food. Therefore this problem need more attention and the role of the government become more important here to look into the issue.

R. Radhakrishna and K. Venkata Reddy (2004) article named ‘Food Security and Nutrition: Vision 2020’ mentioned that while India achieved success in combating transient food insecurity caused by droughts or floods, it miserably failed to make much difference in chronic food insecurity in terms of low energy intake and high incidences of malnutrition. The overall improvement in nutritional status has also been very slow.[1] Anjani Kumar, M.C.S. Bantilan, Praduman Kumar, Sant Kumar and Shiv Jee (2012) has examined the trends on food security in India with the latest available evidences in terms of availability, access and consumption, and has found that all these are interrelated. The finding has also shed light on food management policies and their impact on food security. [2] Angus Deaton, Jean Drezer (2009) reviews recent evidence on food intake and nutrition in India in an article ‘Food and Nutrition in India.’ It attempts to make sense of various issues, particularly the diminishing average calorie intake during the last 25 years. This decline has occurred across the distribution of real per capita expenditure, in spite of increases in real income and no long term increase in the relative price of food.[3] Kalpana Singh (2014) in his article ‘Food Security in India: Performance and Concerns’ has described that the prime concerns of India’s policies has been the food and nutritional security to its population. The three important components of food security are: availability, access to the people and its consumption. The major aim of this paper is to examine the performance in food security in India in respect of these three components.[4] Prof. BJ Lathi and Prof. Parag Narkhede (2013) in his article ‘Food Security in India: Concepts, Realities & Innovations’ have described that, Food Security, in general is increasingly affected by global economic and environmental phenomena. The food prices are affected due to food scarcity which causes social and political instability, and can escalate humanitarian crises.[5]

This study is based on secondary data which have been collected from various sources i.e. books, magazines, Government Publications, news papers and web sites. The descriptive methodology has been adopted to analyze the data and find the results on various issues and challenges in food security. The conclusions and suggestions have been made on the basis of analysis.

1.  Concept and Evolution of Food Security

The concept of food security is continuously developing over the last few decades with many changes in  policy thinking. The concern with food security can be drawn back to the world food crisis of 1972-74 and at the 1974 World Food Conference. In 1983, FAO analysis concentrated on the equilibrium between the demand and supply side of food security and focused on food accessibility. The world bank of 1986 on Poverty and Hunger paid special attention on temporal dynamics of food insecurity. This was complemented by Sen’s Theory of Famine which highlighted the consequence of personal rights on food access i.e. production, labour, trade and transfer based resources. World Food Summit (1996) definition reinforces the multidimensional concept of food security and includes food access, availability, and its stability. Currently over 40 countries have the right to food enshrined in their constitution and FAO estimates that the right to food could be judicial in some 54 countries[6].

The concept of Food security is centered around two sub-concepts; food availability at local, national or international levels and food title. The latter refers to the capability of an individual or household to obtain food.[7] The main prerequisites or dimensions of food security are as follows: Food availability: The physical availability of food refers to adequate quantities of food, supplied through native production or imports which reflects supply side of food security. Food Accessibility refers to access to adequate resources for acquiring appropriate food for a nutritious and balance diet to individuals. Food utilization in general understood as the way the body makes the most of various nutrients in the food through balance diet, clean water, hygiene, sanitation and heath care. Stability: To be food secure, an individual, household or population must have access to adequate food at all times.[8]

2. Food Security System in India:

The Parliament of India enacted legislation known as the National Food Security Act 2013, in order to provide the Right to Food to every citizen of the country. This Act seeks to provide subsidized food grains to approximately two-thirds of India’s 1.33 billion populations. Food Subsidy is the foundation on which the National Food Security Act 2013 is implemented in India. Apart from this various food security schemes have been launched in India to address the issues of food security and provide accessibility of food to each and every citizen of the country.

I. National Food Security Bill, 2013:

The bill was passed in Lok Sabha on 26 August 2013 to ensure that all people, at all times, should get access to the basic food for their active and healthy life. The enactment of the National Food Security Act 2013  marks a paradigm shift in the approach to food security from welfare to rights based approach.[9] The act legally entitles to urban and rural population to receive subsidized food grains under Targeted Public Distribution System.

II. Food Security Schemes in India:

 India has the largest food schemes in the World to ensure food security to the people.

Table-1
Government schemes[10]

Scheme	Year introduced	Coverage target group	Latest volume	Issue price (Rs per Kg)
Public Distribution System (PDS)	up to 1992	universal	N/A	Wheat: 2.34 Rice: 2.89
Revamped Public Distribution System (RPDS)	1992	Backward blocks	20 kg of food grains.	Wheat: 2.80 Rice: 3.77
Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)	1997	Poor and non-poor APL BPL	35 kg of food grains.	BPL –Wheat-4.15  Rice-5.65 APL - Wheat-6.10  Rice-8.30
Antyodaya Anna Yojana	2000	Poorest of the poor	35 kg of food grains.	Wheat: 2.00 Rice: 3.00
Annapurna Scheme	2000	Indigent senior citizens	10 kg of food grains.	free
National Food Security Act. 2013	2013	Priority households	5 kg per person per month.	Wheat: 2.00 Rice: 3.00  Millet: 1.00

Source:  Economic survey of India, Ministry of Finance.

Public Distribution System: –The major part of the Government expenditure was done on the food subsidies which are implemented through the Targeted Public Distribution System.

Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS):  This scheme is made for all Primary School children.

Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS): All Children under six, Pregnant and lactating mother are covered under this scheme.

Food Subsidy Programmes in India:[11] The Nodal Ministry for the implementation of food security is the Ministry of Consumer Affair, Food and Public Distribution.

Following are the programmes being run by the government to benefit the needed:

– Targeted Public Distribution System (Provides 35 kgs/ month of subsidized food grains)

– Annapurna (Provides10 kgs of free food grain for destitute poor).

– Employment Programmes are being organized for the people.

– National Rural Employment Scheme ( Provides100 days of employment at minimum wages).

– Social Safety Net Programmes.

– National Old Age Pension Scheme (Monthly pension to BPL families).

– National Family Benefit Scheme (Compensation given in case of death of bread winner to BPL families).

3.  Food Security Issues In India:

Food security has been a major developmental issue since the beginning of planning. India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and efforts are continuously made to maintain it. Though the country has achieved self sufficiency in food grains but still there are many issues which are need to be addressed to attain food security for every citizen of the country.

I. Inspite of self sufficiency in food grains over 225 million Indians remain under nourished. Half of the children below five years of age and 40 percent population of adult are still under nourished. This much of high level of wasting away of human resources is a cause of concern.

II. The government has implemented a wide range of nutrition intervention programmes for achieving food security at the household and individual levels. The Public Distribution System (PDS) supplies food items, such as food grains and sugar at administered prices through fair price shops, mid day meal programmes for school going children and launched other programmes for children and women but food security is still a major issue today and raises a question on implementation of these sechemes.

III. The report of M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) have warned that inspite of high economic growth rates the country is still facing a crisis in its rural economy.

IV.  India’s Performance in Global Hunger Index 2022:[13]

India’s global score has improved to 18.2 in 2022 as compared to 19.1 in 2014. The ranking of India is 107th out of 121 countries in the GHI 2022. India has slipped 6 positions from its 2021 rank of 101. According to the latest data. The rate of Child Wasting is the highest in India in the GHI covered countries. The Child stunting has declined from 38.7% to 35.5%. The Child mortality has also dropped from 4.6% to 3.3%.

•         India performance in undernourishment –The population undernourishment has also risen in the country from 14.6% in 2018-2020 to 16.3% in 2019-2021.

•         India performance in child wasting – India’s child wasting rate (low weight for height) is at 19.3%, which is worse than the levels recorded in 2014 (15.1%) and even 2000 (17.15%).

Fig-1

source: https://www.globalhungerindex.org/

4.  Food Security Challenges In India:

The following challenges in respect of food security are being faced by the country:

I. Crop Diversification:

The concept of crop diversification came after green revolution because of low prices of food grains like rice and wheat and farmers ended up with very low net returns even during bumper production. By switching over to other crops like cotton, chili and sunflower the farmers were encouraged to earn higher profits. The other reason is that the productivity of rice and wheat was poor in some regions like uplands and dry lands due to high moisture stress sensitivity of these crops. Hence by encouraging farmers to adopt crop diversion to high profit margin crop their profit margin can be increased.

The trend of temporal change in area share of the crops due to crop diversion in India revealed that the area under cereals (expressed in percentage of gross cropped area) has been found to be declined from 15.12 in 2007-08 to 12.93 in 2016-17 (Table 2). Similarly, the area under pulses has increased from 12.54 in 2007-08 to 15.38 in 2016-17. The area under food grains has increased from 65.85 in 2007-08 to 66.84 in 2016-17.

There is a need to prioritize the preferential crops that suit well under each agro-climatic region of the country so that higher net returns can be achieved by the farming community through crop diversification.[15]

II. Climate change:

The impact of climate change on Indian agriculture is quite complex as several factors are involved in this. The change in climate affects food security at the global level as it brings remarkable changes in land utilization pattern and water resource availability.[16] So we can no deny the impact of climate change on Indian agriculture. Therefore there is an urgent need to address the food security concerns that are central to economic and sustainable development issues.

III. Mismatch between water demand and Availability:

The key factor to decide future agricultural growth and food security is availability of water and its demand for agriculture purpose. The level of earth water has gone drastically down and availability of water in the rivers also has reduced rapidly. Most of the rivers have dried up. The requirement of water is increasing day by day due to more population and industrial growth. Gross water demand for all users in India is expected to grow up to 1027 BCM by 2025. About 63 million hactere land is irrigated out of 143 hactere arable land in India. The  half of the irrigated area in our country is expected to receive water through exploitation of groundwater. Hence, the mismatch between the expanding demand for and supply of water emerging and spreading steadily over space. This will lead to serious implications for meeting the food production growth targets and food security in India. Therefore efforts must be made to strike an optimum balance between the demand and supply of water resources for ensuring food security in India.[17]

IV. Production of high yielding varieties need for higher momentum:

The production of high yielding varieties is needed for higher momentum to growth. Farmers are still not able to get information about the availability of new and improved varieties of seeds and also not having access to quality seeds of these verities in some of the regions.  This situation needs to be addressed by developing a national level network with various state government and central government as well providing these seeds to the farmers in right time.

V.  Agricultural pricing and crop insurance issues:

The level of minimum support prices of different agricultural crops is determined by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) by taking into consideration different factors. The enhancement of minimum support prices at frequent intervals would be highly essential with the significant increase in cost of cultivation of food grains. The shifting of cultivation of cereals and pulses to non food grain crops will poses a severe threat to food security in India. Therefore the farmers must be provided with a comprehensive crop insurance policy to meet the unforeseen climatic conditions.

VI. Urban Encroachments:

The issue of SEZs has drawn national attention, particularly since early 2007 due to the mass resistance in some regions of the country. The  SEZ have given the permission to increase export growth rate and economic growth rate of the nation in the present era of globalization and liberalization. The Table 4 below has reflected  the significant growth rate of physical exports from 13854 crores to 266773 crores (19 times greater) for the period 2003–04 to 2017–18 (Table 3).  It has also helped in creating additional employment opportunities, higher investment from domestic and foreign sources and development of infrastructure facilities. The foreign direct investment has also increased tremendously in India. But the problem is that this may challenge the growth equity principle which hampers the objective of food security in India. Therefore, the government must ensure that there is no impact on the objective of growth equity principle.

Table 3.

Trend of physical exports from Special Economic Zones  (SEZs) in India from 2003–04 to 2017–18

Year	Value of physical exports from SEZs Growth rate  (Rs crore)	(% over previous year)
2003–04	13,854	39
2004-05	18,314	32
2005-06	22,840	25
2006-07	34,615	52
2007-08	66,638	92
2008-09	99689	50
2009-10	220711	121.40
2010-11	315868	43.11
2011-12	364478	15.39
2012-13	476159	31
2013-14	494077	04
2014-15	463770	-6.13
2015-16	467337	0.77
2016-17	523637	12.05
2017-18	266773	13.39

Source: “Challenges to food security in India” by P. S. Brahmanand*, A. Kumar, S. Ghosh, S. Roy Chowdhury, R. B. Singandhupe, R. Singh, P. Nanda, H. Chakraborthy**, S. K. Srivastava and  M. S. Behera , Special Economic Zones in India, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of Commerce (sezindia.nic.in).

VII.  Agricultural Marketing:

Supply chain management is main cause of concern in the agricultural marketing. It provides access to market. Therefore steps must be taken by the government for the betterment of agricultural marketing by allowing private sectors and foreign direct investment.

VIII.  Land Fragmentation:

Industrial development has put pressure on agricultural land and leading to land fragmentation and low productivity. Therefore, there is a need for shift in land use and cropping pattern so that productivity can be increased and food security can be ensured.

IX.   Quality Seeds and Planting Material:

The availability and quality of seed is the another challenge in front of the agricultural sector. Government must ensure the quality and availability of seeds to the farmers in the given agro climatic condition. This will help in more production and will lead in strengthening the mission of food security.

X.   Globalisation:

Globalization has increased the interdependence and completion among world market. This has created worsed condition for the domestic farmers and producers. The impact of globalization has lead to establishment of special economic zones (SEZs) which have created the more gap between the rich and the poor. Government must take steps to remove this gap ensure food security to all.

1. R Radhakrishna, K Venkata Reddy, (2004) Food Security and Nutrition, Vision 2020, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, pg 201-220. 2. Anjani & Bantilan, M.C.S. & Kumar, Praduman & Kumar, Sant & Jee, Shiv, Kumar, 2012. Food Security ion India: Trends, Patterns and Determinants, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 67(3), pg 1-19. 3. EPW Economic & Political Weekly, February 14, 2009 vol xliv No 7 Pg 42-65. 4. Kalpana Singh, Food Security in India: Performance and Concerns, Amity School of Economics/Amity University, Noida, UP, India, IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 19, Issue 7, Ver. III (July. 2014), Pg 106-119. 5. B J Lathi and Parag Narkhede , Food Security in India: Concepts, Realities & Innovations. 6. Shaleen Jain (2016) Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, India. Corresponding author, Food Security in India: Problems and Prospects. OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, Pg 13. 7. Padmini Prasad and Avani Pratap ,Article on Food security in India: key issues and strategies, Bihar Economic Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, August 2014,ISSN : 22308970. 8. Shaleen Jain (2016) Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur, India. Corresponding author, Food Security in India: Problems and Prospects. OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, Pg 13. 9. National Food Security Act, (NFSA) 2013, Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India. 10. Economic survey of India, Ministry of Finance. 11. Government of India, Department of Food and public Distribution, Ministry of Consumer affair, Food and Public Distribution. 12. Government of India, Department of Food and public Distribution, Ministry of Consumer affair, Food and Public Distribution. 13. https://www.globalhungerindex.org/ 14. Pocket Book of AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS 2017, Government of India Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare Directorate of Economics & Statistics New Delhi, Page 21, Table 4.3 15. Brahmanand, P. S., Mohanty, R. K. and Kumar, A., Integrated rice-fish farming. Directorate of Water Management, IndianCouncil of Agricultural Research, Bhubaneswar, 2006, p. 78. 16. Nema, P., Nema, S. and Roy, P., An overview of global climate changing in current scenario and mitigation action, Renewable Sustain. Energy Rev., 2012, 16, pg 2329–2336. 17. Ghosh, S. and Brahmanand, P. S., Water and food security, Kurukshetra, 2009, 57, 19–20.