More Menu

What is Food Security? Explained

byPosted at

 Content

  1. Introduction
  2. The Concept Of Food Security
  3. Causes Of Food Insecurity 
  4. What Are Famines?
  5. Right to Food
  6. The Public Distribution System
  7. Conclusion

Introduction

In the present environment, civilizations and nation states are very concerned about the issue of food security. The prevalence of high levels of undernourishment among these population groups suggests that many people around the world, especially poorer communities in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, are unable to obtain sufficient quantities of safe and nutritious food to meet nutritional requirements and occasionally physical survival. The prevalence of societal inequities is highlighted by the coexistence of widespread food insecurity and hunger with high levels of economic success. Food insecurity may be caused by a number of circumstances, including rising food prices, conflicts that disrupt livelihoods, climate change, or economic policies, deteriorating agriculture, the expansion of the informal economy, poverty, and the lack of access to cheap healthcare.

Food insecurity is viewed as damaging to the objectives of promoting wellness and development for all by national governments and international organizations. Since food is a fundamental social and economic right that is recognized in national constitutions and international agreements, persistent hunger and food insecurity also imply a violation of human rights. Public involvement and activism for the right to food have significantly improved understanding and program, policy, and legislative development. More recently, "Zero Hunger" has been declared a crucial sustainable development objective that must be achieved by all countries within the next ten years. A variety of causal explanations, measuring tools, and corrective actions have been identified for the well-researched notion of food security. The concepts, theories, measurement, causal analysis, regulations, and social protection policies used to address food security in India will be covered in this module.

The Concept Of Food Security

The notion, which was introduced during the 1996 World Food Summit, is typically defined in terms of four dimensions: accessibility, stabilization, use, and availability. Food security is defined as "the physical and economic availability to all people at all times of sufficient, safe and nutritious food to suit their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." (FAO 1996)

Based on the above definition the FAO has identified four dimensions of food security such as: 
  • A) the physical availability of food (associated with food production, stocks and trade), 
  • B) economic and physical access to food (associated with incomes, expenditure, markets and prices, 
  • C) Food utilization (care, feeding practices, intra-household allocation and dietary diversity) and D) stability of the three dimensions (A, B and C) over time. (FAO undated)
The various causes of food insecurity can be addressed using a mix of economic and social policies and tools. National policies may be used to boost national food production levels in order to increase food availability. Farmers can receive additional assistance to boost household productivity. A program that can enhance food supply by enhancing farm production and motivating farmers is input subsidies. Another illustration may be public works projects that are carried out to enhance soil and water conservation or the regrowth of natural resources. Through school feeding programs and the utilization of food price subsidies to provide low cost supplies of food in the local markets, access to food could be improved. How food price subsidies are utilized to increase household access to food is demonstrated by the targeted public distribution system in India. Variations in food production and price have an impact on food stability. Small-scale farmers' livelihoods can be protected by implementing public works programs to support income and safeguard the assets of vulnerable farming households as well as by offering subsidized insurance against crop loss or livestock mortality caused by weather or climate change. Different types of price control measures, export taxes, food subsidies, and the use of public grain inventories can all be used to combat fluctuating food prices. Social programs, including in-kind or monetary transfers, can increase people's food consumption by enabling them to better their health and nutritional status.

Causes Of Food Insecurity 

Undernourishment and hunger still exist today despite broad prosperity. Influential scholars claim that because there is not always a major food shortage in modern nations, hunger is currently politically and ethically unacceptable (Dreze and Sen 2002). Instead, the 'power over food' of a segment of the population changes drastically or gradually over time, which leads to hunger and food insecurity (ibid). Therefore, it is the duty of the state and civil society actors to closely monitor these shifts, identify the weak, and make sure that the rights of those who are entitled to food are always respected. People who depend on wages, small-scale farmers, and other natural resource-dependent groups (such as pastoralists and fishing communities) as well as informal sector workers face varying levels of production and income uncertainty, making them particularly vulnerable to changes in food prices. As a result, they have varying levels of access to the appropriate variety of food needed for survival and adequate nutrition (ibid). Today's wage labor dependent population groups in agricultural and related industries, as well as the informal sector, would always be vulnerable to food insecurity in the absence of effective institutionalized social safety mechanisms.

What are Famines

If there is a severe food shortage that lasts for a long time without an end in sight, there will likely be severe malnutrition and a large number of deaths (Perroni 2017). According to the author, a certain amount of food scarcity, nutritional deficiency, and mortality take place at the same time as famine. The following levels or elements have been identified: More than 30% of the population suffers from severe malnutrition, 20% of households in a region struggle to find enough food, and more than two individuals per 10,000 perish every day (ibid). Great famines are ones in which more than 100,000 people died from starvation or illnesses brought on by nutritional deficiencies. The graph below shows that up to the early 20th century, famines occurred more frequently than they do today. Famine-related hunger caused 140 million deaths worldwide in the century between 1870 and 1969. During this time, there were 45 major famines that killed over 100,000 people. More recently, 5.4 million people perished in famines in Ethiopia and Cambodia between 1970 and 1980. There have only been six major famines since the 1980s, totaling 1.4 million fatalities (de Waal 2015). Famines decreased throughout the 20th and 21st centuries for a variety of complex reasons. These include enhanced vaccine coverage, primary healthcare initiatives, improved water and sanitation, increased agricultural production, an increase in global income, and most crucially, the growth of democratic rights and a free press (de Waal 2015). More so than problems with the availability of food, authoritarian governments, wars, and colonialism have directly or indirectly contributed to millions of famine fatalities (ibid).

Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate economist, proposed the Entitlement Approach as a theoretical framework for analyzing starvation and famine. His thesis holds that in order to comprehend hunger and poverty, one must emphasize "the Ability of People to Command Food Using the Legal Means Available in Any Society." Production, trade, and state entitlements are examples of the means at hand in any society. Individual famine resulted from humans being unable to order food through the aforementioned methods. This is a "Failure of Entitlement" to "a bundle containing enough food," according to Sen. The entitlement approach changed the emphasis of the causes of famine from widespread food supply or availability decline or shortage to issues of access and affordability at the individual and household level, showing societal level poverty and inequality. According to Perroni (2017), the devastating effects of crop failure are not distributed uniformly across a population, and the entitlement concept helps people comprehend this unequal risk allocation. Some groups, such as the less fortunate and landless agricultural labourers, might witness a sharp reduction in their entitlements, which would result in a loss of control over food and, ultimately, hunger. Even though there was enough food in the area to sustain the populace during every major famine since the Second World War, the poor simply could not buy it. A person or household's capacity to make an income declines when they are exposed to a variety of external dangers, such as a drought, conflict, or economic shock, increasing their susceptibility to hunger (ibid). Sen refers to social policy measures as "exchange entitlements" that maintain people's control over food even when they are impacted by more significant macroeconomic shocks or natural disasters. Unemployment insurance, subsidized food transfers to the needy, public labor programs, employment guarantees, and emergency help during humanitarian emergencies are a few examples of such initiatives.

Right to Food

The widespread problem of hunger and undernutrition in the nation and the inefficiency of the current social safety nets to address it have been brought to the nation's notice through public action by concerned individuals, civil society organizations, and newspaper campaigns. Right to Food campaigners used public interest litigation to raise public awareness and encourage coordinated state action. The Civil Writ Petition No. 196, submitted by PUCL Rajasthan in 2001, is one of the historic cases in which the GOI, the Food Corporation of India, and six state governments were accused of infringing the "Right to Life." Later, the petition was extended to all 50 states and the union territories. The petitioners contended that while people in drought-stricken India starved to death and experienced chronic hunger, massive amounts of food grain rotted in public stores, indicating the Food Corporation of India's extensive food stockpiling with the aim of achieving national food security through self-sufficiency in staple food grains. The focus was on how the targeted Public Distribution System's failure and the government's ineffective drought response infringed peoples' rights to food and, by implication, to life. In response to the PIL, the Supreme Court issued its first interim ruling in November 2001.

This concentrated on eight programs, turning the provisions under each into legal entitlements: food transfers through the Public Distribution System (PDS), cash transfers through the National Old Age Pension Scheme (NOAPS), national maternity benefit program, and national family benefit program, and nutritional support to primary education (mid-day meal program).

The right to food campaign was founded on using the power of the people to end hunger. Such public actions, according to Dreze and Sen (2002), go beyond simply providing meals to those in need. According to this perspective, interventions that result in the development of capabilities would be a more general objective.

The National Food Security Act was passed by the Indian government in 2013 with the goal of ensuring that everyone has access to sufficient food at a reasonable cost. The Act grants the two-thirds of India's population access to 5 kg of rice, wheat, or coarse grains per person every month at a subsidised pricing of Rs. 1-3 in order to address the issue of persistent and high levels of hunger and malnutrition. The Act stipulates that up to 75% of the rural population and up to 50% of the urban population may be covered by the Targeted Public Distribution System's subsidised foodgrain program (TPDS). For rice, wheat, and coarse grains, the qualifying individuals will be able to receive 5 kg of foodgrains per person each month at subsidised prices of Rs. 3/2/1 per kg. The current Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) families, which represent the most impoverished people, would continue to get 35 kg of food per home each month.

The Act also places a particular emphasis on providing women and children with nutritional support. Along with meals during pregnancy and the first six months following childbirth, these women are also eligible to maternity benefits worth at least Rs. 6,000. Children up to the age of 14 have a right to wholesome meals that adhere to the established dietary criteria. The recipients will get food security payment in the event that the required foodgrains or meals are not provided. The NFSA establishes the following entitlements as a result: subsidized food grains from the public distribution system, nutrient-dense meals for school-age and preschool children in schools and anganwadi centers, and a maternity allowance of Rs. 6000 for all mothers (Dreze et al 2016). At the District and State levels, the Act incorporates provisions for the establishment of grievance redressal mechanisms. The Act also includes specific procedures for maintaining accountability and transparency.

The Public Distribution System

Unusually huge numbers of people in India live in persistent poverty, which results in endemic hunger. The improvement of food entitlement for those who face significant obstacles in putting together nutritious daily meals is one of the main goals of the government's social welfare plan. The primary purpose of the public distribution system is to make affordable food available to everyone (PDS). The PDS evolved into a welfare program in the 1980s and gained relevance as a protection mechanism for the poor during the post-liberalization era from its original purpose of shielding the general population from food shortages and price fluctuations. The most crucial component of this plan has emerged as the affordable food grain distribution through fair price shops.

Targeting in the PDS first appeared as a result of worries regarding access and utilization. Targeting was thought to be important in order to concentrate on the most underprivileged population groups, who have historically had less access to the advantages of this program. Families who possess a card identifying them as the poorest households are provided with a set amount of food grain at a discounted price under the targeted PDS. For determining eligibility for the PDS and determining entitlements, many Indian states have developed their own standards.

Despite the PDS's widespread acceptance among rural poor people, detractors have highlighted the program's numerous flaws, including inconsistent performance across states, distributional inefficiencies, inclusion and exclusion errors, elite capture, resource misallocation, inaccurate or nonexistent beneficiary identification, and a program's limited impact on the poorest. However, as some have argued, the consequences of the PDS on nutrition and food security, when the system is operating well, have received far less attention. Recent evidence of the PDS's resuscitation in many states has shown the significant effects it can have on rural poverty through implicit income transfer and by stabilizing the unstable earnings of numerous rural households who were mostly dependent on casual wage jobs in India (Dreze and Khera 2012). According to a recent NSSO survey on PDS usage, 46% of rural households buy their rice and 34% buy their wheat from stores at reasonable prices. Between 2004–05 and 2011–12, this percentage increased by twofold. Urban families' purchases of wheat have increased by three times while those of rice have increased by two times during the same time period.

The difficulties in identifying eligible people and issuing ration cards to homes have been a significant element in the PDS's limited reach. These "exclusion errors" have made it more difficult for the PDS to assist those who are most likely to need assistance. Instead of rigorous targetting, more inclusive PDS access criteria will guarantee that the most vulnerable rural households had access to this vital lifeline. The qualified beneficiaries are found at the state level using a variety of techniques. For instance, data from the SECC (Socio-economic Caste Census) is used in West Bengal, Bihar, and Jharkhand, and in Odisha, beneficiaries' self-declarations are used to determine eligibility for benefits under the NFSA 2013. (Dreze et al 2016). The 350,000 PDS stores across the nation have been instructed to install point of sale devices in order to increase efficiency and transparency. In addition, the beneficiary ration card has been linked to the Aadhar unique identity card.

International Norms

At the 1996 World Food Summit, participating nations agreed to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015 compared to 1990–1992. Halfing the number of people who experience hunger by the year 2015 is one of the main objectives of MDG1 (Eradicate severe Poverty and Hunger), which is the first of the Millennium Development Goals. The percentage of the population in developing countries that was undernourished decreased from 23.3% to 12.9% between 1990–1992 and 2015. However, according to the Global MDG monitor, there are still 780 million people in the developing world who are undernourished.

The objective to eradicate world hunger was emphasized in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which replaced the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. In order to "end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and persons in vulnerable situations, including newborns, to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food all year round," 2030 has been established as the deadline for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2). 3 . In order to achieve the SDG2's goal of eradicating hunger, sustainable agriculture, smallholder agriculture protection, and volatility stabilization of food prices are prioritized. While food shortages that historically resulted in widespread starvation and famines that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives have been eliminated by humanity. Without coordinated policy measures for agriculture, poverty reduction, and nutrition, ending endemic hunger and malnutrition is likely to be more difficult.

Conclusion

India shares a fourth of the world's hunger problem with its over 195 million undernourished citizens. In India, 4 out of 10 children, or almost 47 million people, are chronically undernourished or stunted, which prevents them from reaching their full potential. Stunting has negative effects on learning ability, academic performance, incomes, and likelihood of developing chronic diseases. The effects span generations since undernourished women and girls frequently give birth to babies with low birth weights. In India, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents has increased, with long-term effects on non-communicable diseases in adults. The government has extensive programs to combat poverty and provide food security, but there are serious inclusion and exclusion problems. Girls and women are particularly underprivileged. Even though the country is now self-sufficient in food, new problems have surfaced, including sluggish agricultural growth, climate change, land degradation, and declining biodiversity.

Reference

  • Devereux, S. 2015. Realizing the Right to Social Security and the Right to Food. ESS Working Paper No. 51. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/--- soc_sec/documents/publication/wcms_431741.pdf
  • De Waal, A. 2015. Ending Mass Atrocity, ending famines. Lancet, Vol.86:1528-29. http://thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)00480-8.pdf
  • Dreze, J and Sen, A. 2002. Hunger and Public Action. Oxford: Clarendon Press 
  • Dreze, J. 2004. Democracy and Right to Food. EPW, April 24, 1723-1731
Post a Comment
Tag

Comments

Thank You