Food security
Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is unquestionably the largest livelihood provider in India, more so in the vast rural areas. It also contributes a significant figure to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Sustainable agriculture, in terms of food security, rural employment, and environmentally sustainable technologies such as soil conservation, sustainable natural resource management and biodiversity protection, are essential for holistic rural development. Indian agriculture and allied activities have witnessed a green revolution, a white revolution, a yellow revolution and a blue revolution
Food security is a condition related to the ongoing availability of food. Concerns over food security have existed throughout history. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security "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".
Ensuring food security ought to be an issue of great importance for a country like
India where more than one-third of the population is estimated to be absolutely poor and one-half of all children malnourished in one way or another. There have been many emerging issues in the context of food security in India in the last two decades. These are: (i) economic liberalization in the 1990s and its impact on agriculture and food security; (ii) establishment of WTO: particularly the
Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) under it; (iii) challenges of climate change; crisis of the three Fs, viz., food prices, fuel prices, and financial crisis; (iv) the phenomenon of hunger amidst plenty, i.e., accumulation of stocks in the early years of this decade and in 2008-09 along with high levels of poverty; (v) introduction of targeting in the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the first time in the 1990s; (vi) ‘Right to Food’ campaign for improving food security in the country and the Supreme Court
Food security is a condition related to the ongoing availability of food. Concerns over food security have existed throughout history. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security "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".
Ensuring food security ought to be an issue of great importance for a country like
India where more than one-third of the population is estimated to be absolutely poor and one-half of all children malnourished in one way or another. There have been many emerging issues in the context of food security in India in the last two decades. These are: (i) economic liberalization in the 1990s and its impact on agriculture and food security; (ii) establishment of WTO: particularly the
Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) under it; (iii) challenges of climate change; crisis of the three Fs, viz., food prices, fuel prices, and financial crisis; (iv) the phenomenon of hunger amidst plenty, i.e., accumulation of stocks in the early years of this decade and in 2008-09 along with high levels of poverty; (v) introduction of targeting in the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the first time in the 1990s; (vi) ‘Right to Food’ campaign for improving food security in the country and the Supreme Court