CBSE Class 9 Economics – 4. Food Security in India (Notes)

Food Security – The availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people at all times is called food security.

Food security refers to availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people at all times.

Food security depends, on the Public Distribution System (PDS) and government vigilance and time to time action, when this security is threatened.

1. Availability of food: This means the food production within the country, food imports and previous years’ stock stored in government granaries.
2. Accessibility of food: This means food should be within reach of every person.
3. Affordability: This means that every individual has enough money to buy sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet one’s dietary needs.

What is food security?

Food security means availability of adequate supply of basic foodstuffs at all times.

The 1995 World Food Summit declared, “Food security at the individual, household, regional, national and global levels 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”.

The declaration further recognises that “poverty eradication is essential to improve access to food”.

Dimensions of Food security:

Availability of Food It means food production within the country, food imports and the previous year’s stock stored in government granaries.

Accessibility of Food It means food is within reach of every person.

Affordability of Food It implies that an individual has enough money to buy sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet one’s dietary needs.

Food security is ensured in a country only if –

Enough food is available for all the persons.

All persons have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality.

There is no barrier on access to food.

Why Food Security?

In the 1970s, food security was understood as the “availability at all times of adequate supply of basic foodstuffs” (UN, 1975).

Amartya Sen added a new dimension to food security and emphasised the “access” to food through what he called ‘entitlements – a combination of what one can produce, exchange in the market along with state or other socially provided supplies.

Accordingly, there has been a substantial shift in the understanding of food security.

The 1995 World Food Summit declared, “Food security at the individual, household, regional, national and global levels 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”.

The declaration further recognises that poverty eradication is essential to improve access to food”.

The poorest section of the society might be food insecure most of the times while persons above the poverty line might also be food insecure when the country faces a national disaster.

How is food security affected during a calamity?

Due to a natural calamity, say drought, total production of food grains decreases.

It creates a shortage of food in affected areas of food, the prices go up.

Due to shortage at the high prices, some people cannot afford to buy food.

If such calamity (Drought) happens in a very wide area or is stretched over a longer time period, it may cause a situation of starvation.

A massive starvation might take a turn of famine.

Features of famine:

Wide spread deaths due to starvation.

Epidemics caused by forced use of contaminated water or decaying food.

Loss of the body resistance due to weakening from starvation.

The most devastating famine that occurred in India was the famine of Bengal in 1943.

This famine killed thirty lakh people in the province of Bengal.

Who are food – Insecure?

The worst affected groups are landless people with little or no land to depend upon, traditional artisans, providers of traditional services, petty self employed workers and destitutes including beggars.

In the urban areas food insecure families are those whose working members are generally employed in ill paid occupations and casual labour market.

These workers are largely engaged in seasonal activities and are paid very low wages that just ensure bare survival.

Social composition:

The SCS, STS and some sections of the OBCs (lower caste among them) who have either poor land base or very low land productivity are prone to food insecurity.

The people affected by natural disasters, who have to migrate to other areas in search of work, are also among the food insecure people.

A high incidence of malnutrition prevails among women especially pregnant and nursing mothers and children under the age of 5 years.

According to the National Health and Family Survey (NHFS) 1998 99, the number of such women and children is approximately 11 crore.

Prone area of food insecure:

The food insecure people are disproportionately large in some regions of the country, such as economically backward states with high incidence of poverty, tribal and remote areas, regions more prone to natural disasters etc.

The state of Uttar Pradesh (eastern and south eastern parts), Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra account for largest number of food insecure people in the country.

Story of Ramu:

Ramu works as a casual labourer in agriculture in Raipur village.

His eldest son Somu who is 10 years old also works as a pali to look after the cattle of the Sarpanch of the village Satpal Singh.

Somu is employed for the whole year by the Sarpanch and is paid a sum of Rs 1,000 for this work.

Ramu has three more sons and two daughters but they are too young to work on the field.

His wife Sunhari is also (part time) working as house cleaner for the livestock, removing and managing cow dung.

She gets ½ litre milk and some cooked food along with vegetables for her daily work.

Besides she also works in the field along with her husband in the busy season and supplements his earnings.

Agriculture being a seasonal activity employs Ramu only during times of sowing, transplanting and harvesting.

He remains unemployed for about 4 months during the period of plant consolidation and maturing in a year.

He looks for work in other activities.

Sometimes he gets employment in brick laying or in construction activities in the village.

By all his efforts, Ramu is able to earn enough either in cash or kind for him to buy essentials for two square meals for his family.

However, during the days when he is unable to get some work, he and his family really face difficulties and sometimes his small kids have to sleep without food.

Milk and vegetables are not a regular part of meals in the family.

Ramu is food insecure during 4 months when he remains unemployed because of the seasonal nature of agriculture work.

Story of Ahmad:

Ahmad is a rickshaw puller in Bangalore.

He has shifted from Jhumri Taliah along with his 3 brothers, 2 sisters and old parents.

He stays in a jhuggi.

The survival of all members of his family depends on his daily earnings from pulling rickshaw.

However, he does not have a secured employment and his earnings fluctuate every day.

During some days he gets enough earning for him to save some amount after buying all his day-to-day necessities.

On other days, he barely earns enough to buy his daily necessities.

However, fortunately, Ahmad has a yellow card, which is PDS Card for below poverty line people.

With this card, Ahmad gets sufficient quantity of wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene oil for his daily use.

He gets these essentials at half of the market price.

He purchases his monthly stock during a particular day when the ration shop is opened for below poverty people.

In this way, Ahmad is able to eke out his survival with less than sufficient earnings for his big family where he is the only earning member.

Hunger:

Hunger is not just an expression of poverty, it brings about poverty.

The attainment of food security therefore involves eliminating current hunger and reducing the risk of future hunger.

There are two types of dimensions of hunger

1. Chronic Hunger
2. Seasonal hunger

Chronic hunger:

It is consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or quality.

Poor people suffer from chronic hunger because of their very low income and in turn inability to buy food even for survival.

Seasonal Hunger:

It is related to cycles of food growing and harvesting.

This is prevalent in rural areas because of the seasonal nature of the agricultural activities and in urban areas because of the casual labour, e.g. there is less work for casual construction labour during the rainy season.

This type of hunger exists when a person is unable to get work for the entire year.

Self-sufficiency in food grain:

After independence, Indian policy makers adopted all measures to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains.

India adopted a new strategy in agriculture, which resulted in the ‘ Green Revolution’ especially in the production of wheat and rice.

Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, officially recorded the impressive strides of the Green Revolution in agriculture by releasing a special stamp entitled ” Wheat Revolution’ in July 1968.

Self-sufficiency:

Though after the success of Green Revolution and new Agricultural Policy, the imports of food grains have considerably fallen but still India is not self dependent in case of food security.

The highest rate of growth has been achieved in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, where foodgrain production reached an all-time high of 78.9 million tonnes in 2013-14.

West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, recorded significant increases in rice yield in 2012-13.

Food security in India – Food security system has two components

1. Buffer Stock
2. Public Distribution System

1. Buffer stock – The extra stock of foodgrains maintained by the FCI is called buffer stock.

This stock is utilised in case of drought or flood or any natural calamity.

It is stock of food grains, namely wheat and rice procured by the government through Food Corporation of India (FCI).

The food corporation of India was set in 1965.

The main function of Food Corporation of India (FCI) is –

To procure food grains directly from the farmers.

To store the food grains.

To distribute the food grains to various agencies.

Minimum Support Price:

The farmers are paid a pre-announced price for their crops.

This price is called Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The MSP is declared by the government every year before the sowing season to provide incentives to the famers for raising the production of these crops.

The purchased food grains are stored in granaries.

This buffer stock is created by the government.

This is done to distribute food grains in the deficit areas and among the poorer strata of society at a price lower than the market price also known as Issue Price.

This also helps to resolve the problem of shortage of food during adverse weather conditions or during the period of calamity.

2. Public Distribution System – Supply of essential commodities to the people through government agencies is known as public distribution system.

It is used as an important activity of the state to ensure food security to the people, particularly the poorer ones Under PDS the central government has assumed responsibility for supply of essential commodities like wheat, rice, sugar, edible oils and kerosene.

This scheme is implemented with the help of the government in states and union territories.

There are more than 5.5 Lakh fair price shops to distribute the essential commodities.

The prices of the goods sold through PDS in fair price shops are less than that of the market price. The cost of this price difference is borne by the government. This amount is known as subsidy.

The introduction of Rationing in India dates back to the 1940s against the backdrop of the Bengal famine.

The rationing system was revived in the wake of an acute food shortage during the 1960s, prior to the Green Revolution.

At present, there are several Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAPs), mostly in rural areas, which have an explicit food component also.

While some of the programmes such as PDS, mid-day meals etc. are exclusively food security programmes, most of the PAPs also enhance food security.

Employment programmes greatly contribute to food security by increasing the income of the poor.

Average consumption of PDS gain per person per month is 1kg, at all India level.

Issue price – The price at which foodgrains are sold through the PDS is called issue price.

The issue price is always lower than the market price.

Fair price shops – The ration shops which come under the PDS are called fair price shops.

Types of ration card –

Antyodaya cards for the poorest of the poor.

BPL card for those below

APL cards for all other

Rationing – A term given to government controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services is called Rationing.

It restricts how much people are allowed to buy or consume at a particular time within a particular period.

Rationing in India was introduced in 1940s against the backdrop of the Bengal famine.

Later, it was revived in the wake of an acute food shortage during 1960s prior to the Green Revolution.

The National Food Security Act, 2013:

This Act provides for food and nutritional security life at affordable prices and enables people to live a life with dignity.

Under this act, 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population have been categorized as eligible households for food security.

Three important food intervention programmes:

In the 1970s, three important food intervention programmes were introduced to tackle the shortage of food:

1. Public Distribution System (PDS): This system was made to ensure smooth supply of subsidized food items to the poor.
2. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS): These services were introduced in 1975 to provide proper nutrition to poor children.
3. Food for Work (FFW): This programme was introduced in 1977-78 to help the poor to earn food in lieu of some work.

Similarly, many Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAPs) have been introduced from time to time to tackle the food shortage. Mid Day Meal scheme was launched in government schools to provide freshly cooked lunch to poor children

1. Current Status of Public Distribution System:

In the beginning the coverage of PDS was universal with no discrimination between the poor and non poor.

In 1992, Revamped Public Distribution system (RPDS) was introduced in 1700 blocks in the country.

The target was to provide benefits of PDS to remote and backward areas.

From June 1997, in a renewed attempt Targeted Public Distribution system (TPDS) was introduced to adopt the principle of targeting the ‘poor’ in all areas.

It was for the first time that a differential price policy was adopted for poor and non poor.

In 2000, two special schemes were launched i.e. Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and the Annapurana Scheme (APS) with special target groups of poorest of the poor and indigent senior citizens.

        

Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY):

Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) AAY was launched in December 2000.

Under this scheme one crore of the poorest among the BPL families covered under the targeted public distribution system were identified.

Poor families were identified by the respective state rural development departments through a Below Poverty Line (BPL) survey.

Twenty-five kilograms of foodgrains were made available to each eligible family at a highly subsidised rate of ` 2 per kg for wheat and ` 3 per kg for rice.

This quantity has been enhanced from 25 to 35 kg with effect from April 2002.

The scheme has been further expanded twice by additional 50 lakh BPL families in June 2003 and in August 2004.

With this increase, 2 crore families have been covered under the AAY.

Annapurna Scheme (APS) for the ‘indigent senior citizen’:

It provides 10 kg of foodgrains free of cost per month to senior citizens who are not receiving any pension nor have any other source of income or having a family to support them, i.e. they are destitute.

Subsidy:

Subsidy is a payment that a government makes to a producer to supplement the market price of a commodity.

Subsidies can keep consumer prices low while maintaining a higher income for domestic producers.

Advantages of Public Distribution System:

The PDS has proved to be the most effective instrument of government policy over the years in stabilising prices and making food available to consumers at affordable prices.

It has been instrumental in averting widespread hunger and famine by supplying food from surplus region of the country to the deficit ones.

In addition, the prices have been under revision in favour of poor households in general.

The system, including the MSP and procurement has contributed to an increase in food grain production and provided income security to farmers in certain regions.

Disadvantages of Public Distribution System:

Instances of hunger are prevalent despite overflowing granaries.

FCI go-downs are overflowing with grains.

In July 2014, the stock of wheat and rice with FCI was 65.3 million tones which were much more than the minimum buffer norms.

The high level of buffer stock food grains is very wasteful.

The PDS dealers are sometimes found resorting to malpractices like diverting the grains to open market to get better margin, selling poor quality grains at ration shops, irregular opening of the shops.

            

Problems of the working of the ration shops:

Some scholars criticise the Public Distribution System on various grounds and stress the need of reforming the whole system. They point out the following problems in the working of the Ration Shops or the Public Distribution system:

Firstly –  

It is pointed out that the quality of rationed articles issued to the poor is much less than required by them.

As a result, the poor have to depend on markets than the ration shops for their food needs.

Secondly –  

The ration shop dealers resort to malpractices.

They divert the grains to the open market to get a better margin.

Some ration shop dealers sell poor quality of grains at the ration shops.

Still others open their shops irregularly so that the poor people could not draw their ration quota.

Some dealers weigh less and cheat the illiterate customers.

Some ration shops are unable to sell their poor quality grains, which becomes a great headache for the FCI.

With the introduction of three types of cards and three different prices for the same article to the different people, the whole system of Public Distribution System has became much complicated in such a case many ration shop dealers themselves surrender them and they shift to other business.

Any family above the poverty line gets very little discount at the ration shop so there is very little charm for them to buy their items from the ration shops.

2. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS):

In 1975, it was introduced on an experimental basis.

Its aim is to provide children upto 6 years of age supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health, check-up, referral services, pre-school non-formal education as well as nutrition and health education for their mothers.

3. Food-For-Work (FFW) Programme:

The main objective of the Food for Work Programme is generation of supplementary wage employment.

It is open to all rural people who are in need of unskilled work wage employment.

National Food for Work Programme:

National Food for Work Programme was launched on 14th November, 2004 in 150 most backward districts of the country with the objective of intensifying the generation of supplementary wage employment.

The programme is open to all rural poor who are in need of wage employment and desire to do manual unskilled work.

It is implemented as a 100% centrally sponsored scheme and the food grains are provided to the states free of cost.

The Collector is the nodal officer at the district level and has the overall responsibility of planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring and supervision.

The programme from 2005 has since been subsumed in NREGA.

Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAPs):

Over the last few years, several other Poverty Alleviation Programmes (PAPs), were launched mostly in rural areas.

Some of – them have also been restructured.

Some of these programmes have explicit food components.

Others are employment programmes, which improve food security by increasing the income of the poor.

For example, Rural Wage Employment Programme, Employment Guarantee Scheme, Sampurna Grameen Rozgar Yojana and Mid-day-Meal.

Criticisms of PDS:

However, the Public Distribution System has faced severe criticism on several grounds. Instances of hunger are prevalent despite overflowing granaries.

FCI godowns are overflowing with grains, with some rotting away and some being eaten by rats.

In 2014, the stock of wheat and rice with FCI was 65.3 million tonnes which was much more than the minimum buffer norms.

However, these remained consistently higher than the buffer norms.

The situation improved with the distribution of foodgrains under different schemes launched by the government.

There is a general consensus that high level of buffer stocks of foodgrains is very undesirable and can be wasteful.

The storage of massive food stocks has been responsible for high carrying costs, in addition to wastage and deterioration in grain quality.

Freezing of MSP for a few years should be considered seriously.

The increased food grains procurement at enhanced MSP# is the result of the pressure exerted by leading foodgrain producing states, such as Punjab, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh.

Moreover, as the procurement is concentrated in a few prosperous regions (Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and to a lesser extent in West Bengal) and mainly of two crops— wheat and rice— increase in MSP has induced farmers, particularly in surplus states, to divert land from production of coarse grains, which is the staple food of the poor, to the production of rice and wheat.

The intensive utilisation of water in the cultivation of rice has also led to environmental degradation and fall in the water level, threatening the sustainability of the agricultural development in these states.

As per the NSSO report No. 558 in rural India, the per person per month has declined from 6.38 Kg. in 2004-05 to 5.98 Kg in 2011-12.

In urban India, the per person per month consumption of rice, too has declined from 4.71 Kg in 2004-05 to 4.19 Kg in 2011-12.

Per Capita consumption of PDS rice has doubled in rural India and increased by 66% in urban India since 2004-05.

The per Capita consumption of PDS wheat has doubled since 2004-05 in both rural and urban India.

The rising Minimum Support Prices (MSP) have raised the maintenance cost of procuring foodgrains by the government. Rising transportation and storage costs of the FCI are other contributing factors in this increase.

Malpractices in PDS:

PDS has also become ineffective in many regions of the country because dealers running the ration shops are indulged in malpractices.

The malpractices indulged into by the dealers include –

1. Diverting the grains to open market to get a better margin.
2. Selling poor quality grains at ration shops.
3. Irregular opening of the shops and so on.

PDS dealers are sometimes found resorting to malpractices like diverting the grains to open market to get better margin, selling poor quality grains at ration shops, irregular opening of the shops, etc.

It is common to find that ration shops regularly have unsold stocks of poor quality grains left.

This has proved to be a big problem.

When ration shops are unable to sell, a massive stock of foodgrains piles up with the FCI.

In recent years, there is another factor that has led to the decline of the PDS.

Earlier every family, poor and non-poor had a ration card with a fixed quota of items such as rice, wheat, sugar etc.

These were sold at the same low price to every family.

The three types of cards and the range of prices that you see today did not exist.

A large number of families could buy foodgrains from the ration shops subject to a fixed quota.

These included low income families whose incomes were marginally higher than the below poverty line families.

Now, with TPDS of three different prices, any family above the poverty line gets very little discount at the ration shop.

The price for APL family is almost as high as open market price, so there is little incentive for them to buy these items from the ration shop.

Role of cooperatives in food security:

The cooperatives are also playing an important role in food security in India especially in the southern and western parts of the country.

The cooperative societies set up shops to sell low priced goods to poor people.

For example, out of all fair price shops running in Tamil Nadu, around 94 per cent are being run by the cooperatives.

In Delhi, Mother Dairy is making strides in provision of milk and vegetables to the consumers at controlled rate decided by Government of Delhi.

Amul is another success story of cooperatives in milk and milk products from Gujarat.

It has brought about the White Revolution in the country.

These are a few examples of many more cooperatives running in different parts of the country ensuring food security of different sections of society.

Similarly, in Maharashtra, Academy of Development Science (ADS) has facilitated a network of NGOs for setting up grain banks in different regions.

ADS organises training and capacity building programmes on food security for NGOs.

Grain Banks are now slowly taking shape in different parts of Maharashtra.

ADS efforts to set up Grain Banks, to facilitate replication through other NGOs and to influence the Governments policy on food security are thus paying rich dividends.

The ADS Grain Bank programme is acknowledged as a successful and innovative food security intervention.