Food Security

Food Security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation.[1] It is a measure of resilience to future disruption or unavailability of critical food supply due to various risk factors including droughts, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, wars, etc. Food security assessment is divided into the self-sufficiency rate (S) and external dependency rate (1-S) as this divides the largest set of risk factors. Although countries may desire a high self-sufficiency rate to avoid transport risks, this may be difficult to achieve especially for wealthy countries, generally due to higher regional production costs.[2] Conversely, high self-sufficiency without economic means leaves countries vulnerable to production risks. The World Health Organization defines three facets of food security: food availability, food access, and food use. Food availability is having available sufficient quantities of food on a consistent basis. Food access is having sufficient resources, both economic and physical, to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Food use is the appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation. The FAO adds a fourth facet: the stability of the first three dimensions of food security over time.[1] The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. Commonly, the concept of food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences. In many countries, health problems related to dietary excess are an ever increasing threat, In fact, malnutrion and foodborne diarrhea are become double burden. Food security is built on three pillars:

Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis. Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation.

Food security is a complex sustainable development issue, linked to health through malnutrition, but also to sustainable economic development, environment, and trade. There is a great deal of debate around food security with some arguing that:

There is enough food in the world to feed everyone adequately; the problem is distribution. Future food needs can - or cannot - be met by current levels of production. National food security is paramount - or no longer necessary because of global trade. Globalization may - or may not - lead to the persistence of food insecurity and poverty in rural communities.Issues such as whether households get enough food, how it is distributed within the household and whether that food fulfils the nutrition needs of all members of the household show that food security is clearly linked to health.

Agriculture remains the largest employment sector in most developing countries and international agriculture agreements are crucial to a country's food security. Some critics argue that trade liberalization may reduce a country's food security by reducing agricultural employment levels. Concern about this has led a group of World Trade Organization (WTO) member states to recommend that current negotiations on agricultural agreements allow developing countries to re-evaluate and raise tariffs on key products to protect national food security and employment. They argue that WTO agreements, by pushing for the liberalization of crucial markets, are threatening the food security of whole communities. Related issues include:

What is the net impact of the further liberalization of food and agricultural trade, considering the widely differing situations in developing countries? To what extent can domestic economic and social policies - and food, agricultural and rural development policies - offset the diverse (and possibly negative) impacts of international policies, such as those relating to international trade? How can the overall economic gains from trade benefit those who are most likely to be suffering from food insecurity? Do gains trickle down to enhance economic access to food for the poor? How can food and agricultural production and trade be restrained from the over-exploitation of natural resources that may jeopardize domestic food security in the long term? How to ensure that imported food products are of acceptable quality and safe to eat? Food security is defined as the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Stages of food insecurity range from food secure situations to full-scale famine.
The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. Two common definitions of food security come from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): * Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (FAO) * Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum, (USDA): (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies). In 2006 it was reported that globally, the number of people who are overweight has surpassed the number who are undernourished - the world had more than one billion people who were overweight, and an estimated 800 million who were undernourished. Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying

degrees of poverty. 17,000 children die of hunger and malnutrrition related diseases every day, which equals 6 million children who die of hunger every year. In the United States of America there are approximately 2,000,000 farmers, less than 1% of the population. A direct relationship exists between food consumption levels and poverty. Families with the financial resources to escape extreme poverty rarely suffer from chronic hunger; while poor families not only suffer the most from chronic hunger, but are also the segment of the population most at risk during food shortages and famines. Things affecting food security today include: Global Water Crisis - Water table reserves are falling in many countries (including Northern China, the US, and India) due to widespread overpumping and irrigation. Climate Change - Rising global temperatures are beginning to have a ripple effect on crop yields, forest resources, water supplies and altering the balance of nature. Land Degradation - Intensive farming leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields. Greedy Land Deals - Corporations and Governments buying rights to millions of acres of agricultural land in developing countries to secure their own long-term food supplies. Genetically Modified (GM) Food and Food Security Will genetically modified foods be the answer to a crisis in food security? At present little is known on the consequences and future safety aspects of GM foods. The movement of genes from GM plants into conventional crops in the wild (outcrossing), as well as the mixing of crops derived from conventional seeds with those grown using GM crops, may have an indirect effect on food safety and food security. This risk is real, as was shown when traces of a maize type which was only approved for feed use appeared in maize products for human consumption in the United States of America. Far from focusing on the needs of the poor in developing countries, GM crop development is driven by the commercial interests of US and European companies. The major GM crops currently grown - soya, oilseed rape, cotton and maize are designed to support the food and textile industries of the developed world. There is currently little GM research and development by private companies on staple food crops vital to developing countries. "Terminator" seeds are modified to produce sterile seeds. This prevents farmers from saving seeds to plant the following season. 1.4 billion people, mainly poor farmers in developing countries, depend on saved seed. Farmers are then forced to buy new seeds every year from the biotech companies. Despite universal condemnation from farmers movements all over the world, the technology is still being developed today. Food security is not just a poverty issue; it is a much larger issue that involves the whole food system and affects every one of us in some way. Issues such as whether households get enough food, how it is distributed within the household and whether that food fulfils the

nutrition needs of all members of the household show that food security is clearly linked to health. Global Food Security must exist to meet the challenge of providing the worlds growing population with a sustainable, secure supply of good quality food.

Challenges to achieving food security

"The number of people without enough food to eat on a regular basis remains stubbornly high, at over 800 million, and is not falling significantly. Over 60% of the world's undernourished people live in Asia, and a quarter in Africa. The proportion of people who are hungry, however, is greater in Africa (33%) than Asia (16%). The latest FAO figures indicate that there are 22 countries, 16 of which are in Africa, in which the undernourishment prevalence rate is over 35%."[28]

The agriculture-hunger-poverty nexus

Eradicating hunger and poverty requires an understanding of the ways in which these two injustices interconnect. Hunger, and the malnourishment that accompanies it, prevents poor people from escaping poverty because it diminishes their ability to learn, work, and care for themselves and their family members. Food insecurity exists when people are undernourished as a result of the physical unavailability of food, their lack of social or economic access to adequate food, and/or inadequate food use.[29] Food-insecure people are those whose food intake falls below their minimum calorie (energy) requirements, as well as those who exhibit physical symptoms caused by energy and nutrient deficiencies resulting from an inadequate or unbalanced diet or from the body's inability to use food effectively because of infection or disease. An alternative view would define the concept of food insecurity as referring only to the consequence of inadequate consumption of nutritious food, considering the physiological use of food by the body as being within the domain of nutrition and health. Malnourishment also leads to poor health hence individuals fail to provide for their families. If left unaddressed, hunger sets in motion an array of outcomes that perpetuate malnutrition, reduce the ability of adults to work and to give birth to healthy children, and erode children's ability to learn and lead productive, healthy, and happy lives. This truncation of human development undermines a country's potential for economic development for generations to come. Improving agricultural productivity to benefit the rural poor There are strong, direct relationships between agricultural productivity, hunger, poverty, and sustainability. Three-quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas and make their living from agriculture. Hunger and child malnutrition are greater in these areas than in urban areas. Moreover, the higher the proportion of the rural population that obtains its income solely from subsistence farming (without the benefit of pro-poor technologies and access to markets), the higher the incidence of malnutrition. Therefore, improvements in agricultural

productivity aimed at small-scale farmers will benefit the rural poor first. Food and feed crop demand is likely to double in the next 50 years, as the global population approaches nine billion. Growing sufficient food will require people to make changes such as increasing productivity in areas dependent on rainfed agriculture; improving soil fertility management; expanding cropped areas; investing in irrigation; conducting agricultural trade between countries; and reducing gross food demand by influencing diets and reducing post-harvest losses. According to the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, a major study led by the International Water Management Institute, managing rainwater and soil moisture more effectively, and using supplemental and small-scale irrigation, hold the key to helping the greatest number of poor people. It has called for a new era of water investments and policies for upgrading rainfed agriculture that would go beyond controlling field-level soil and water to bring new freshwater sources through better local management of rainfall and runoff.[30] Increased agricultural productivity enables farmers to grow more food, which translates into better diets and, under market conditions that offer a level playing field, into higher farm incomes. With more money, farmers are more likely to diversify production and grow higher-value crops, benefiting not only themselves but the economy as a whole."[31] Researchers suggest forming an alliance between the emergency food program and community-supported agriculture, as some countries' food stamps cannot be used at farmer's markets and places where food is less processed and grown locally.[32] If you are one of those who believe that the shortage of food is to blame for India's rampant malnutrition problem, it is time to do a rethink. Food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma who was in Mumbai on Friday carefully cut through the maze of data to explain the root of India's food security issues. He explained that we live in paradoxical times, and that it wasn't the shortage of food but the lack of a proper food distribution network that was to blame. In America he pointed out, food was currently the biggest killer with 62% of people diagnosed as being clinically obese, while India lay at the other end of the spectrum with 62% of people remaining hungry. "There are more weight loss clinics in America than ration shops in India," he said.
India is the second largest country so far as population is concerned. But in the field of food production it is a backward country. Although the country men depend chiefly on agriculture, they are not able to meet the requirements of life thereby. Food problem has become very in India. There are many reasons of this problem. Rise of Population is the chief factor. Population increases in geometrical proportion while food production increases in arithmetical proportion. Illiteracy of farmers in our country is the second reason. They seldom apply modern instruments in cultivation. Most of the Indian farmers believe that Goddess Earth will be angry if machines, fertilizers and pesticides are used in land. Ignorance and superstitions of the farmers in our country combining affect our food production. Apart from it, nature is very often hostile. Farmers depend upon rain for agriculture. In recent years, the monsoon rain is very scanty. Farmers have little capacity to fight famine. So food production is greatly affected.

Above all, a lethargic attitude is shown by the Government towards cultivation. The price of everything in market rises. But the price of food grains does not rise. If the above mentioned points are attended to properly, then food production will go up in our country. The first and foremost step is to check the rise of population. All steps should be taken to convince the people of the merits of small family with only one or two children. They should be acquainted of different methods of birth control. The farmers must be given all kinds of facilities to increase food production. Rural banks and Co-operative societies must finance them. They must be given necessary training about the use of modern tools and fertilizers in cultivation. Above all, the attitude to exploit them must cease. Methods of cultivation should improve. If irrigation facility is provided, our farmers can produce two to three crops in a year in their land. Uncultivated land should be brought under cultivation. Recently, the Government of India has provided insurance facility to the backward farmers. Our farmers are also gradually changing their old methods of farming. They are getting adequate encouragement for poultry and dairy farms. There are strict laws against hoarders and black- marketers who create artificial shortage of food grains. Food problem can be solved if all the country men develop art awareness for it. Although man does not live by bread alone, yet without bread, man cannot live at all. Earning his bread has always been man's principal occupation. He may have to earn it by the sweat of his brow, or by employing his brains or, by living upon the labour of others, or by consuming ancestral property, but he must earn it all the same. In the past when men were nomadic tribes, roving from one place to another with no settled habitation, they hunted animals for food. But as they settled down to agriculture and developed communal life, they began to cultivate the soil and makethe earth yield food for their livelihood. They, however, depended more on willing co-operation of Nature, and they relied on fate, rituals of religion, to bring about this co-operation. When the soil proved fertile, and the supply of water was sufficient and the rainfall steady, their trouble was not great. But sometimes these were insufficient; the supply of water failed, and the result was failure of crops, and starvation. They then submitted to their misfortune patiently and tried to appease an angry god and waited for better days. Will the growth of knowledge, of science and technology, confidence and mastery in man's power over Nature increased? Yet there was a belief that man was bound by certain fixed laws. The Malthusian doctrine, that 'population increased faster than food'became a basic concept in political economy. These were looked upon as biological necessities; life has to be destroyed, in order to preserve life. Then another period came:trade developed; science developed. Men learnt to bring food from other countries to make up for deficiencies. They also learnt to improve agriculture by scientific processes. The incidence of famine was controlled. Flood was both a curse and a blessing,curse while it lasted, but a blessing there after as it left the soil richer than before with silt. But now there were two other forces which could yet create troubles. First, there was the capitalist; he would

appropriate food crops, hoard it in days of plenty, to sell it at a high price in times of distress. The burden of high prices oppressed the poor. It increased poverty and want. Secondly, there was war. War holds up import of food grains; diverts labourers from agriculture to factories; makes larger demands on the agricultural population for the benefit of the armies. When the needs of the profiteer and the military combined, disaster was bound to ensue. Bengal had bitter experience of this during the last war, leading to an appalling famine that took the toll of 35 lakhs of lives in 1943. If the shortage of food had been the log of India, nothing would have happened. But it occurred on a wide scale. Russia managed to live and live fairly well. They had wanted of food but no famine. In our country "Grow more food" became an empty slogan; while the war lasted, land must be examined, classified and plotted out; fertilisers must be distributed; labour must be pooled and organized and supplemented by machinery; where possible a permanent source of water-supply must guard against the incidence of drought. Science, not chance, must regulate agriculture. An all out drive is needed. This is the implication that underlies a "Grow more food" policy. The Multi-purpose River Valley Schemes are steps in the right direction. These have minimised the incidence of floods and ensured storage of water in artificial Jakes. The nationalisation of land and instruments of production have a twofold effect. In the first place, it dispenses with the fragmentation of land, which is economically unsound. The giant fertiliser factories are now working at full blast Food security in India The focus on accelerated foodgrains production on a sustainable basis and free trade in grains would help create massive employment and reduce the incidence of poverty in rural areas. INDIA AT present finds itself in the midst of a paradoxical situation: endemic mass-hunger coexisting with the mounting foodgrain stocks. The foodgrain stocks available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) stand at an all time high of 62 million tonnes against an annual requirement of around 20 million tonnes for ensuring food security. Still, an estimated 200 million people are underfed and 50 million on the brink of starvation, resulting in starvation deaths. The paradox lies in the inherent flaws in the existing policy and implementation bottlenecks. Challenges ahead India's food security policy has a laudable objective to ensure availability of foodgrains to the common people at an affordable price and it has enabled the poor to have access to food where none existed. The policy has focused essentially on growth in agriculture production (once India used to import foodgrains) and on support price for procurement and maintenance of rice and wheat stocks. The responsibility for procuring and stocking of foodgrains lies with the FCI and for distribution with the public distribution system (PDS).

Minimum support price: The FCI procures foodgrains from the farmers at the government announced minimum support price (MSP). The MSP should ideally be at a level where the procurement by FCI and the offtake from it are balanced. However, under continuous pressure from the powerful farmers lobby, the government has been raising the MSP and it has now become higher than what the market offers to the farmers. Also, with quality norms in the procured grains not strictly observed, farmers pressurise the FCI to procure grains beyond its procurement target and carrying capacity. The MSP has now become more of a procurement price rather than being a support...

The Global Hunger Index released by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) places India 67th in rankings with a score of 24.1, far below China and below Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal.

The Global Hunger Index is calculated as an average of (1) proportion of the population that is undernourished (in %), (2) prevalence of underweight in children under five (in %) and (3) proportion of children dying before the age of five (in %). For India, the respective numbers are 22, 43.5 and 6.9.

According to FAO, about 25% of worlds undernourished live in India.

The World Bank has joined the chorus warning the world of an impending food crisis with damaging food price inflation. In its late-August edition of its Food Price Watch the Bank reported that global prices for food as reflected by its Food Price Index rose 10 per cent in July 2012 alone. The prices of staples such as corn and soya bean were at an all-time high that month, with the increase in corn prices amounting to 25 per cent and that in soya bean to 17 per cent over a single month. Earlier, the FAO had reported that its Food Price Index (FPI) rose by 6 per cent in July 2012, driven by grain and sugar prices. Cereal prices had risen by 17 per cent in June relative to the previous month, maize prices by close to 23 per cent and wheat prices by around 19 per cent

FOOD SECURITY: CHALLENGES AND ISSUES IN INDIA

ABSTRACT: Food security in India has to be understood as a distress phenomenon, as with marginal increase in their incomes over time they are forced to cut down on their food consumption to meet other pressing demands of health and education that were not considered important in the past. High economic growth rates have failed to improve food security in India leaving the country facing a crisis in its rural economy. If food security is a complex objective, pursued with others (shelter, safety, health, self-esteem), in a world where individual households face diverse, complex and different livelihood opportunities, what role can policy possibly play? Can governments ever know enough to act? This paper is focused on the several foods security issues prevalent in the Indian scenario. Data are taken from relevant sources to analyse the gravity of the food security issues in India. It also covered the several development programmes taken up by the Indian government to counter various food security issues including several schemes and yojanas.

INTRODUCTION: Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. According to the World Resources Institute, global per capita food production has been increasing substantially for the past several decades. In 2006, MSNBC reported that globally, the number of people who are overweight has surpassed the number who is undernourished - the world had more than one billion people who were overweight, and an estimated 800 million who were undernourished. According to a 2004 article from the BBC, China, the world's most populous country, is suffering from an obesity epidemic. In India, the second-most populous country in the world, 30 million people have been added to the ranks of the hungry since the mid-1990s and 46% of children are underweight. In developing countries, often 70% or more of the population lives in rural areas. In that context, agricultural development among smallholder farmers and landless people provides a livelihood for people allowing them the opportunity to stay in their communities. In many areas of the world, land ownership is not available, thus, people who want or need to farm to make a living have little incentive to improve the land. Two commonly used definitions of food security come from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA): Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (that is, without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies). (USDA) Those who are around the poverty line, this has to be understood as a distress phenomenon, as with marginal increase in their incomes over time they are forced to cut down on their food consumption to meet other pressing demands of health and education that were not considered important in the past, India's malnutrition figures are not coming down despite a number of government programmes, says a new report released by World Food Programme. The research points out the need for a revamped public distribution system and greater public investment to address the wants of rural population. OBJECTIVES:The main objective of this study is to analyze the various issues prevalent in India relating to Food Security. The other objectives are:

India. FOOD SECURITY ISSUES IN INDIA: Food security has been a major developmental objective in India since the beginning of planning. India achieved self-sufficiency in food grains in the 1970s and has sustained it since then. But the achievement of food grain security at the national level did not percolate down to households and the level of chronic food insecurity is still high. Over 225 million Indians remain chronically under nourished. In 2000-01, about half of the rural children below five years of age suffered from malnutrition and 40% of adults suffered from chronic energy deficiency. Such a high level of wasting away of human resources should be a cause for concern.

In recent years, there has been a shift in policy focus towards household level food security and per capita food energy intake is taken as a measure of food security. The government has been implementing 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. There have been a range of food-for-work and other wage employment programmes. Another approach adopted by the government is to target women and children directly; this includes mid-day meal programme for school going children and supplementary nutrition programme for children and women. High economic growth rates have failed to improve food security in India leaving the country facing a crisis in its rural economy, warns the latest report released by the World Food Programme and the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF). According to the GOI Economic Survey, foodgrain production in India has declined from 208 kg per annum per capita in 1996-97 to 186 kg only in 2009-10, a decline of 11 per cent. Despite reduced production, India has been exporting on an average 7 million tonnes of cereals per annum, causing availability to decline further by 15 per cent from 510 gms per day per capita in 1991 to 436 gms in 2008. Launched in the Indian capital on February 20, 2009, State of Food Insecurity in Rural Indiatries to give a broad indicative picture of the level of food insecurity in different states of the country and the operation of the nutrition safety net programmes. The report says that the number of undernourished people is rising, reversing gains made in the 1990s. Slowing growth in food production, rising unemployment and declining purchasing power of the poor in India are combining to weaken the rural economy. FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGES IN INDIA: The most important challenge is to increase the energy intake of the bottom 30% of the population and at the same time facilitate diet diversification to meet micronutrient deficiency. The food gap can be met from the existing foodgrain stocks in the medium term and by increasing their purchasing power in the long run through increasing job opportunities. The micronutrient deficiency can be rectified through supplementary nutrition and supply of fortified food. There is also a need to improve the efficiency of the various food schemes initiated by the government and make it more available and free of corruption and urban bias. However for those who are around the poverty line, this has to be understood as a distress phenomenon, as with marginal increase in their incomes over time they are forced to cut down on their food consumption to meet other pressing demands of health and education that were not considered important in the past. Food is still needed, but not demanded for lack of money. Endemic hunger continues to afflict a large proportion of Indian population. Internationally, India is shown to be suffering from alarming hunger, ranking 66 out of the 88 developing countries studied by IFPRI in 2008. India as part of the world community has pledged to halve hunger by 2015, as stated in the Millennium Development Goal 1, but the present trends show that this target is unlikely to be met. India is a poignant example of how food sufficiency at the aggregate level has not translated into food security at the household level. The revised thrust of the World Food Programme will be to bring the hungry, malnourished, and vulnerable within the ambit of human development. Today, on the threshold of 60 momentous years of Independence, the nation is justifiably proud of its myriad achievements. Among these is the remarkable success in eliminating widespread famines and the impressive increases in food production. Nonetheless, there is a long road to be travelled before the vision of a truly food secure India is achieved. As the world's leading humanitarian agency and the food aid arm of the United Nations, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been privileged to work with the Government of India in its efforts to eliminate hunger and ensure food security to the poor. Although its assistance is small compared to the scale of the Government's own programmes, yet with its international outreach, and the experience gained

globally, the WFP has a special niche in complementing and sharpening government efforts to eliminate hunger. Recent years have seen the economy booming and growth rates have been among the highest in the world. The flip side, however, is that one in every five Indians suffers from overt or covert hunger. "Hunger," as stated by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze, is "intolerable in the modern world" in a way it could not have been in the past, because it is "so unnecessary and unwarranted." India is a poignant example of how food sufficiency at the aggregate level has not translated into food security at the household level. A staggeringly large number of undernourished about 214 million people is chronically food insecure. Many more, varyingly about 40 million, are exposed to natural disasters. About 50 per cent of children (mostly tribal and rural) are undernourished and stunted, 23 per cent have a low birth weight and 68 out of 1000 die before the age of one year. There is a high prevalence of anaemia and other micronutrient deficiencies. The challenge before the WFP is to help the country attain the critical Millennium Development Goal on eradicating hunger. The Draft Approach Paper to the Planning Commission's Eleventh Five-Year Plan articulates a "vision of growth that will be much more broad-based and inclusive." These priorities of the Government match the WFP's own goals and will guide future initiatives. As part of the U.N. system, the WFP also works within the U.N. Development Assistance Framework to achieve synergy and, at the same time, avoid costly duplication of efforts. Committed to the vision of a hunger-free India, the WFP set itself twin goals. The first is to be a catalyst for change in the country's effort to reduce vulnerability and eliminate food insecurity. The second is to leverage policy and resources to demonstrate models that provide immediate and longer-term food security in the most food insecure areas. The WFP seeks to achieve its strategic objectives through three major initiatives. The first is the support it extends to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). India is home to the largest number of children in the world. But what distinguishes India is not the numbers but what has been called its "silent emergency": astonishingly high child malnutrition rates. As part of its assistance to the ICDS, the WFP has successfully piloted Indiamix a nutritious fortified food widely recognised as an innovative nutrition intervention Secondly, the WFP complements the Government of India's mid-day meal scheme in some districts with a mid-morning snack that is fortified with vitamins and minerals and enhances learning by children, many of whom go to school on an empty stomach. This has proved to be an effective means to increase enrolment and retention, especially that of young girls. With increasing degradation of resources, the livelihoods of poor tribal communities are under threat. In collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the WFP assists food-for-work activities in tribal development programmes undertaken by Governments in select States. This has led to empowerment of tribal communities and sustainable use of natural resources. In addition to the core programmes, the WFP has proposed significant capacity-building initiatives that relate to food fortification, grain banks, and strengthening of the Government's food-based programmes. The Ending Child Hunger and Undernutrition Initiative is an alliance between UNICEF and the WFP at the global level as well as in India that holds great promise. The WFP takes pride in the analytical rigour it has imparted to the conceptualisation of food security. The Food Insecurity Atlases, prepared in collaboration with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, were a landmark. Extending the earlier work to the regional and district levels, the WFP proposes to prepare, in partnership with the Government, food insecurity atlases for several States.

The future beckons! As India surges ahead to take its rightful place in the comity of nations, we in the WFP look forward to the coming years with renewed faith and optimism and a firm belief that hunger and undernourishment can be banished. The revised thrust of the WFP endeavours will be to bring the hungry, malnourished, and vulnerable within the ambit of human development, to change the course of their destiny and unleash their potential through opening a new world of opportunities. THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS: The global financial crisis drew international attention away from the food crisis, but this continues to fester and even grow. When the global food crisis first hit international headlines in 2008, international bureaucrats referred to the current problems in the world food situation as a silent tsunami, but the truth is that it was not a sudden and unexpected crisis: the signs have been around for some time now and it could easily have been seen to be coming. Even so, its impact has been powerful and already quite devastating, as food shortages and high prices of food have adversely affected billions of people, especially the poor in the developing world. It is also very much a man-made crisis, resulting not so much from ineluctable forces of global supply and demand as from the market-oriented and liberalising policies adopted by choice or compulsion in almost all countries. These policies have either neglected agriculture or allowed shifts in global prices to determine both cropping patterns and the viability of farming, and also generated greater possibilities of speculative activity in food items. Cultivators in developing countries have been ravaged by the fearsome combination of exposure to import competition from highly subsidised agriculture in developed countries, removal of domestic protection of inputs and reduced access to institutional credit - to thepoint that even the global increase in agricultural prices after 2002 did not compensate sufficiently to alleviate the pervasive agrarian crisis in much of the developing world. It is also clear that the global food crisis is not something that can be treated as discrete and separate from the global financial crisis. On the contrary it has been intimately connected with it, particularly through the impact of financial speculation on world trade prices of food. This is not to deny the undoubted role of other real economy factors in affecting the global food situation. While demand-supply imbalances have been touted as reasons, this is largely unjustified given that there has been hardly any change in the world demand for food in the past three years. In particular, the claim that food grain prices have soared because of more demand from China and India as their GDP increases, is completely invalid, since both aggregate and per capita consumption of grain have actually fallen in both countries. Supply factors have been and are likely to continue to be more significant. These include the short-run effects of diversion of both acreage and food crop output for biofuel production, as well as more medium term factors such as rising costs of inputs, falling productivity because of soil depletion, inadequate public investment in agricultural research and extension, and the impact of climate changes that have affected harvests in different ways. Two policy factors affecting global food supply require special note. The first is the biofuel factor: the impact of both oil prices and government policies in the US, Europe, Brazil and elsewhere that have promoted biofuels as an alternative to petroleum. This has led to significant shifts in acreage to the cultivation of crops that can produce biofuels, and diversion of such output to fuel production. For example, in 2007 the US diverted more than 30 per cent of its maize production, Brazil used half of its sugar cane production and the European Union used the greater part of its vegetable oil seeds production as well as imported vegetable oils, to make biofuel. In addition to diverting corn output into non-food use, this has also reduced acreage for other crops and has naturally reduced the available land for producing food.

The irony is that biofuels do not even fulfil the promises of ensuring energy security or retarding the pace of global warming. Ethanol production is extremely energy-intensive, so it does not really lead to any energy saving. Even in the most efficient producer of ethanol Brazil - where sugar cane rather than corn is used to produce ethanol, it has been argued that the push for such production has led to large-scale deforestation of the Amazon, thereby further intensifying the problems of global warming. Indeed, recent scientific research suggests that the diversion of land to growing bio-fuel crops can produce an enormous CO2 debt from the use of machinery and fertilisers, the release of carbon from the soil and the loss of CO2 sequestration by trees and other plants that have been cleared for cultivation (Beddington 2008). Yet, as long as government subsidies remain in the US and elsewhere, and world oil prices remain high, bio-fuel production is likely to continue to be encouraged despite the evident problems. And it will continue to have negative effects on global food production and availability. The second factor is the policy neglect of agriculture over the past two decades, the impact of which is finally being felt. The prolonged agrarian crisis in many parts of the developing world has been largely a policy-determined crisis. Inappropriate policies have several aspects, but they all result from the basic neo-liberal open market-oriented framework that has governed economic policy making in most countries over the past two decades. One majorelement has been the lack of public investment in agriculture and in agricultural research. This has been associated with low to poor yield increases, especially in tropical agriculture, and falling productivity of land. Greater trade openness and market orientation of farmers have led to shifts in acreage from traditional food crops that were typically better suited to the ecological conditions and the knowledge and resources of farmers, to cash crops that have increasingly relied on purchased inputs. But at the same time, both public provision of different inputs for cultivation and government regulation of private input provision have been progressively reduced, leaving farmers to the mercy of large seed and fertiliser companies, input dealers. As a result, prices for seeds, fertilisers and pesticides have increased quite sharply. There have also been attempts in most developing countries to reduce subsidies to farmers in the form of lower power and water prices, thus adding to cultivation costs. Costs of cultivation have been further increased in most developing countries by the growing difficulties that farmers have in accessing institutional credit, because financial liberalisation has moved away from policies of directed credit and provided other more profitable (if less productive) opportunities for financial investment. So many farmers are forced to opt for much more expensive informal credit networks that have added to their costs. In addition, there is the impact of recent climate change, which has caused poor harvests in different ways ranging from droughts in Canada and Australia to excessive rain in parts of the US. Scientists are projecting that warmer and earlier growing seasons will increase crop susceptibility to pests and viruses, which are expected to proliferate as a direct result of rising temperatures. Some more arid regions are already more drought-prone and in danger of desertification. The rapid melting of glaciers in Asia is of huge consequence to China and India, where important rivers such the Yangtze, Yellow and Ganges are fed by such glaciers. This will deprive the hinterland of much-needed irrigation water for wheat and rice crops during dry seasons. This is of global significance since China and India together produce more than half the worlds wheat and rice. Once again, official policy has been tardy in considering such problems, much less in addressing them. The lack of attention to relevant agricultural research and extension by public bodies has denied farmers access to necessary knowledge. It has also been associated with other problems such as the excessive use of ground water in cultivation; inadequate attention to preserving or regenerating land and soil quality; the over-use of chemical inputs that have long run implications for both safety and productivity. Similarly, the ecological implications of both pollution and climate change, including desertification and loss of cultivable land, are issues that have been

highlighted by analysts but largely ignored by policy makers in most countries. Reversing these processes is possible, and of course essential. But it will take time, and also will require not only substantial public investment but also major changes in the orientation and understanding of policy makers. All this mean that the number of hungry people actually increased for the world as a whole, and particularly for certain developing regions. Far from halving, or even decreasing, the number of malnourished people globally increased by more than 50 million between the early 1990s and mid2000s. This was entirely because of increasing hunger in the developing world, as the numbers declined in developed countries. East and Southeast Asia also showed good performance interms of falling numbers of malnourished people, but such numbers increased quite sharply in South Asia (by 50 million) and Sub-Saharan Africa (by 44 million). The surprise is that the growing prevalence of hunger and food insecurity was associated with relatively high GDP growth in several regions, such as India and countries in Latin America. The contrast with East and Southeast Asia is a stark one, and points to the role of public policy in ensuring that aggregate income growth translates into better provision of basic needs such as food for the general population. FOOD SCHEMES IN INDIA : India has the largest food schemes in the World Entitlement Feeding Programmes ICDS (All Children under six, Pregnant and lactating mother) MDMS (All Primary School children) Food Subsidy Programmes Targeted Public Distribution System (35 kgs/ month of subsidised food grains Annapurna (10 kgs of free food grain for destitute poor) Employment Programmes National Rural Employment Scheme (100 days of employment at minimum wages) Social Safety Net Programmes National Old Age Pension Scheme (Monthly pension to BPL) National Family Benefit Scheme (Compensation in case of death of bread winner to BPL families) CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS: Food insecurity and hunger is caused by a large number of factors and hence solutions too have to be multi-sectoral in nature. First, revamp small holder agriculture. Because of stagnating growth in agriculture after the mid-1990s there has been employment decline, income decline and hence a fall in aggregate demand by the rural poor. The most important intervention that is needed is greater investment in irrigation, power, and roads in the poorer regions. It is essential to realize the potential for production surpluses in Central and Eastern India where the concentration of poverty is increasing. Second, launch massive watershed development programmes in central India, where most tribes live. In a successful watershed programme the poor benefit in three ways. First, as the net sown area and crop intensity increases more opportunities for wage employment are created, which may also increase the wage rate besides the number of days of employment. Second, increased water availability and reduced soil erosion increases production on small and marginal farmers lands. And last, the higher productivity of Common Property Resources improves access of the poor to more fodder, fuelwood, water and NTFPs. NREGA assets should be monitored for at least five years to establish their links with drought proofing and enhanced availability of water. Third, start a drive to plant fruit trees on degraded forests and homestead lands that belong to or have been allotted to the poor. This will not only make the poor peoples diet more nutritious, but will also diversify their livelihoods and reduce seasonal vulnerability. Fourth, create more job

opportunities by undertaking massive public works in districts with low agricultural productivity. The upper limit of work guarantee of 100 days per worker should be enhanced to 150 days through an amendment in the Rules in the poorest 200 districts. Fifth, improve the skills of the poor for market oriented jobs, so that they are absorbed in the sunrise industries such as hospitality, security, health, and construction. Sixth, launch a drive in collaboration with civil society to cover the poorest, as a large number of homeless and poor living in unauthorised colonies in urban areas have been denied ration cards, and are thus not able to avail of PDS, on the ground that they do not have an address! In Rangpur Pahadi, a slum area just two kms away from Vasant Kunj (Delhi), people living since 1990 have not been given even voter ID or any ration card. Thus their very existence is denied by the Delhi Government! Seventh, give shops to panchayats, womens self-help groups, or to those who already have a shop so that it remains open on all days. Making it obligatory for dealers to sell non-cereal items will ensure better communication between the dealer and the card holders. Eighth, prepare a comprehensive list every two years of all destitutes needing free or subsidized cooked food. Open up mid-day meals kitchen to these old, destitutes and hungry in the village. This is already being done in Tamil Nadu, and its replication in other states should be funded by the GOI. Establish community kitchens across cities and urban settlements to provide inexpensive, subsidised nutritious cooked meals near urban homeless and migrant labour settlements. Last, India requires a significant increase of targeted investments in nutrition programmes, clinics, disease control, irrigation, rural electrification, rural roads, and other basic investments, especially in rural India, where the current budgetary allocations are inadequate. Higher public investments in these areas need to be accompanied by systemic reforms that will overhaul the present system of service delivery, including issues of control and overseas. Outlays should not be considered as an end in itself. Delivery of food based schemes requires increasing financial resources, but more importantly the quality of public expenditures in these areas. This in turn requires improving the governance, productivity and accountability of government machinery.