How Can India Tackle Its Food Security Crisis

September 1, 2021

The rapidly growing population, resource constraints and climate change concerns,accompanied with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic makes it crucial for India to make food security a primary concern.

The UN World Food Programme has estimated that Covid-19 will increase the number of people facing acute food insecurity up to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million.The pandemic could double the number of food insecure people. And it is now clear that the world is no longer on track to achieve the zero-hunger goal. We can only stop this by taking swift action today.

When talking about India’s position on food security, we find that, with nearly 195 million undernourished persons and a raging crisis in its farm sector, India’s position is critical. According to the Global Hunger Index 2020 report, India is home to nearly a third of all undernourished children globally, and it ranks 94th among 107 countries, behind its neighbours Nepal (73rd), Bangladesh (75th), and Pakistan (88th). And in the Global Food Security Index 2020, India ranks 71st out of 113 countries.

Food security, as defined by the United Nation’s Committee on World Food Security, means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active healthy life. So, we can say that the three key elements of food security is continuous and systematic availability, access and absorption of food. If we can ensure these three elements, then we have a fairly robust system of food and nutrition security.

INDIA’S RESPONSE

The government’s initial announcement of Rs 1.74 lakh crore in funds and measures to provide extra rations through its targeted public distribution system (TPDS) for the first three months, doubling the quantity and free distribution of 5 kg of rice or wheat and 1 kg of pulses and additional provisions of cash of Rs.1000 each, have been very helpful to poor and vulnerable families. This food package has been extended for two more months, with an additional economic stimulus.

Together the Centre and the states runs three major food security programmes that help millions of households access food, cash and other support.

TPDS – With an annual budget of Rs 18.9 lakh crore TPDS distributes 58 million tonnes of wheat and rice at a highly subsidised price. It serves two purposes: it purchases from the surplus farmers and distributes to the needy, covering 814 million people across all states. In the last eight years, TPDS has undergone several reforms, leveraging technology to improve efficiency. Biometric transactions have enabled the realisation of progressive and pro-poor initiatives, including ‘One Nation, One Card’, currently assuming a central role in about 23 states and with the potential to benefit 60-80 million migrant labourers.

MID DAY MEALS – The mid-day meal programme provides daily meals to over 120 million children between classes 1 and 8 in all government and government-aided schools with nutritious cooked meals. The government has budgeted Rs 160 crore for 2.54 million tonnes of rice and wheat every year for the meals. This programme is expected to help improve school enrolment, retention and attention even while reducing classroom hunger.

INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS) – The ICDS provides 100 million children under 6 years of age and pregnant and lactating mothers with cooked meals and take-home rations. The programme has been allocated 2.19 million tonnes of rice and wheat, plus Rs 21,933 crore. It further seeks to improve the nutritional intake and health of children aged 0-6 years, laying the foundation for proper psychological, physical and social development and reducing the incidence of illnesses illness. With the additional allocation of rice/ wheat and pulses in response to COVID 19, the fund and food allocation for these programmes has been increased to Rs 2.3 lakh crore with 75 million tonnes of cereals.

Daily wage earners, migrants and others

Since the onset of the pandemic, in addition to the aforementioned programmes, huge efforts have been made to provide cash, food rations and cooked meals to millions of migrant labourers and urban wage earners, poor and various additional vulnerable groups. There have been extensive engagement of NGOs and private sector and government support in responding to additional demand for food. It has been reported that more than 37,900 relief camps were set up for migrants, serving food to more than 16 million people, further evolving every day.

There were highly subsidised, cooked food made available through the Amma canteens in Tamil Nadu, the Mukhyamantri Dal-Bhat Yojana in Jharkhand, the Annapurna Rasoi in Rajasthan, the Aam Aadmi canteen in Delhi, etc. to the urban poor, engaging thousands of volunteers and being one of the pillars of food security during COVID-19. These are some measure by the state governments and NGO’s which can even be done and continued after the pandemic to tackle the issue of food security.

THE WAY FORWARD

• Expansion of the government support – The government schemes like TPDS, Mid-day Meal, PMGKAY, etc., needs to be expanded to work towards ensuring that the large number of vulnerable people who are currently not included are all included into the food support system across all states.

• Proper implementation of TPDS – TPDS has a lot of capability to cover the food needs of a large volume of population but due to the lack of its implementation on the grounds, the desired targets has not been able to be achieved. So we need to strengthen the surveillance and implementation of TPDS, that its benefits can reach to the last person of the society.

• Diversification of food basket – In view of limited access to nutritious food, there is a need to expand the food basket to ensure that all key nutrient requirements are fulfilled. We should also expand the list of essential foods and widen the food basket by including millets, pulses, oil, etc.

• Partnership with the NGO’s – With movement of migrant labourers, loss of wages and livelihood at various locations, there is a potential emergence of new hotspots with respect to food and nutrition security. Continued engagement by NGOs can help fill blind spots and complement government efforts.

• Distribution of vouchers and Direct Cash Transfers – The supply chains like TPDS provides only one-third of all basic grains consumed by a person, which is not sufficient for nutritional security. Hence, we need to introduce cash vouchers or direct cash transfers so that these beneficiaries could get access to nutritional security.

• Supporting agriculture and allied sectors – Finally, it is crucial to closely watch emerging concerns in the availability of farm inputs such as labor, agricultural inputs, machinery and finance, so that the farming system continues to run uninterrupted and long-term food security is continued to be ensured. These are some of the ways through which the problem food security can be addressed. Food Security in India will influence the country’s growth in many ways i.e., by reflecting the growth in many other sectors also.