Availability of food in india-Accessability of food in India

Food security in India

 

Food security in India should be given great importance as India’s more than one third population are living in poor conditions and many children are malnourished. Food security can be defined as the condition in which all people can have physical and economic access to food at all times so that they can have their dietary needs fulfilled to lead a healthy life. India is still facing the biggest problems of providing food security to its population. Instead of India’s progress in reducing poverty, food security is still a problem. Half of the income of many households is spent on food.

Food security in India is going to be a big challenge as India’s population is increasing every year and by 2030, it is going to surpass china. As the buying power of people in India is increasing the demand for food is also equally increasing. The three factors that are important for food security are availability, access and affordability. These three are related to each other.

Availability of food: Food security in India refers to the availability of food stocks that can be used to meet domestic demand for food. This can be through domestic supply of imports. India could achieve self sufficiency in food grains but over the last two decades the food production growth rate has decreased. Main reasons for this are the low performance of agriculture sector. More than 55% people in India depend on agriculture sector. All these people have to face insecurity of food due to problems in agriculture. Depletion of soil fertility, erosion, decline in surface irrigation expansion rate. Low levels of ground water etc are leading to low production in agriculture sector. Agriculture sector has become non-viable and this increased the suicides of farmers. When the production of agriculture sector is not sufficient, food security in India cannot be achieved.

Accessibility of food: The availability of food supplied by means of food production, imports, food aid etc is necessary for food security in India. Food accessibility depends n various factors like production, income of individuals and market access. Earning sufficient money is important to have food accessibility. People living below poverty line should be helped to earn better to be able to buy sufficient food for themselves and their family.

Affordability of food: Affordability of food is the people should have enough money to buy food for themselves and their family. The dietary needs of a person should be met with sufficient, safe and nutritious food. All persons should have the capacity to buy food of good quality.

Food security in India important as many people in India are living below the poverty line. They cannot even able to buy two meals a day. Natural calamities like famine and floods lead to reduce in food production. When there is food shortage, the prices may go up because of increase in demand. Most poor people will not be able to afford to buy food at the high prices. Landless poor, traditional artisans, small self-employed workers, beggars etc are the people who suffer more from food insecurity.

After independence Indian has tried to get self sufficiency in food grains and has given more importance to provide food security to India. Green revolution has helped India to increase the growth rate of agriculture production. Government has set up Food Corporation of India which procures buffer stock of rice and wheat. The food grains thus procured are distributed to the people through public distribution system at reasonable price to ensure that low income people of the society also will be able to afford to buy food grains for their dietary requirements.

Food security in India is not a difficult target to be achieved. But there are some issued that have to be addressed. In many areas agriculture production is decreasing because of the fatigue nature of soil. Soil health has been damaged by the over use of chemical fertilizers etc. The farmers are not able to buy good quality seeds as there are no funds to help them. National Food Security Mission was launched in 2007 by Government of India to tackle all these problems and ensure food security in India.

Related search terms:

• food security in india
• FOOD OF INDIA
• indias food availability