Food Security, Paradigm Shift, Sustainable and Challenges to Food Security, National Commission on Farmers (2004 - 06)
Get top class preparation for NTSE/Stage-II-National-Level right from your home: get questions, notes, tests, video lectures and more- for all subjects of NTSE/Stage-II-National-Level.
Security
- Food is the first among the hierarchical needs of the humans (Maslow՚s basic needs)
- Achieving food security for all has been a national goal since 1947
- JL Nehru said – “Everything else can wait, but not agriculture” .
What is FS?
Physical, economic, and social access to balanced diet, clean drinking water, environmental hygiene and primary healthcare
Why is Food Security Essential?
- Support 1 billion people
- Employment provision
- Malnutrition is closely linked to food security
- Hence, having food security (as defined above) can increase human capabilities
- Remove unfreedoms (Sen: Development as Freedom)
What is the Scenario in India?
- Under and malnutrition remains widespread
- Statistic
- Mostly children and women suffer the most
Paradigm Shift
- Shifted from a patronage to a rights approach.
- Hence now we are moving towards having legal rights through legislations.
- National Food Security Bill will confer the specified group the legal right to food.
Sustainable Food Security
- We need not just food security but sustainable food security.
- To achieve sustainable food security, following need attention
- Availability of food: function of production and import
- Access to food: function of purchasing power and employment
- Absorption of food: function of clean drinking water, sanitation and healthcare
- Thus, food and non-food factors are essential in sustainable food security
- Government schemes aimed at improving the non-food aspects of food security
- Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission
- Total Sanitation Programme
- National Rural Health Mission
- Programmes like MNREGA help in providing the minimum purchasing power to purchase food
- PDS is there for distribution to ensure access to food
- Government schemes to increase availability of food
- Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana
- National Food Security Mission
- National Horticulture Mission
Challenges to Food Security
- Agriculture is still very vulnerable to the behaviour of the monsoon
- We have to produce food for not just 1.2 bn people but for about a billion farm animals as well
- Agriculture in India is not just a food producing machinery but a source of employment for a majority of people
National Commission on Farmers (2004 - 06)
- Has provided a detailed strategy for the agricultural progress of India
Strategy has following components
- Conserve the gains in the areas of green revolution (UP, Punjab etc) through climate resilient farming
- Extend the gains of green revolution to the excluded areas: Eastern India
- Make new gains in rainfed areas which constitute nearly sixty percent of the cultivated area. RWH and Watershed Mgmt.