1

Food security in India : Issues and Policies

Vidya Sagar

Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur

2

India has moved a full circleduring last fifty years inemphasizing food security with theobjective of adequate nutrition andenvironment for a healthy andproductive life in the X five-yearPlan.(2002-07)

3

Table 1: Incidence of Hunger in India Rural Urban Type of hunger Type of hunger Year Seaso

nal Chr-onic

Total Seasonal

Chr-onic

Total

1983 16.2 2.3 18.5 5.6 0.8 6.4 1990-91 10.8 0.7 11.5 3.0 0.8 3.8 1999-2K 2.6 0.7 3.3 0.6 0.3 0.9 2002 1.1 0.5 1.6 0.2 0.2 0.4 Income Poverty: 1983= 45 per cent 1999= 26 per cent 2

4

Calorie intake has declined in spite of an increase in income/ expenditure for expenditure deciles. An 1.19 per cent annual increase in real income of the bottom three deciles during 1990-99 is associated with a one per cent decline in calorie intake.Similar is the case with the next four expenditure deciles.

5

Malnutrition Among Women and Children

1998-99 1992Women BMI<18.5 36 Anemia 17Children Malnutrition 47 52 Anemia 51

6

Chronic Energy Deficiency and Child Malnutrition is as much due to wastage as due to intake deficiency. Kerala for example, has been the lowest energy consuming state of India during the last three decades and has the lowest incidence of Chronic energy deficiency and child malnutrition. There is a perverse correlation between the incidence of malnourishment and calorie intake, incidence of calorie deficit, calorie gap and calorie severity across Indian states.

7

The perverse relationship between nutrition intake and its absorption can be explained in terms of state level differences in women’s education and autonomy status, health, availability of safe drinking water, sanitation and personal hygiene. Public expenditure on education and health infrastructure besides the child nutrition programs over a long period in Kerala and Tamilnadu have significantly helped these states show better outcomes in spite of high income poverty and low nutrition intake during the eighties.

8

Average intake of iron is 33 per cent higher in Rajasthan as compared to Kerala but the incidence of moderate to severe anemia is five times as much in Rajasthan. Similar is the case with other nutrients.

9

Agricultural Growth: Some Facts

• Food grain Production Increased from 50 mt during TE1952-53 to 206 mt during TE 2001-02.

• Growth in Per capita food grain production was 0.84, 1.62 and 0.90 per cent per annum during the seventies , eighties and nineties respectively.

• There was a buffer stock of 48 mt on Jan-1, 2003 while drought induced hunger was reported in large parts of some states.

10

Policies and Programs for Ensuring Food Security

• Price and Non Price Interventions for– Ensuring Rapid Agricultural Growth

• Direct assistance Programs– Food assistance Programs– Programs Augmenting Entitlements

11

Objectives of Price Policy in India

• Provide adequate incentive to the producer for a sustainable increase in production of food grain,

• Evolve an agricultural production pattern in tune with the needs of the economy

• Increase economic and physical access of the masses to food by increasing purchasing power.

• Reduce growth and instability in prices.

12

Price Policy Interventions and Agricultural Performance

• Half of the output growth in rice and wheat during the nineties may be attributed to price interventions.

• In comparison its contribution during the seventies and eighties was modest.

13

Contributing Factors to Output Growth

Rice WheatRice WheatPrice 19 10 51 48Irrigation 9 28 0 2Electrification 22 3 2 0Literacy 6 3 7 4TFP 15 19 35 15Yield Growth 72 62 96 69Acerage Growth 28 38 4 31

1973-90 1990-95

14

Stability of Prices

• 40 per cent decline in real prices of wheat and rice during 1981-97

• 4-6 per cent inter year variation in wheat and rice prices as against 16-18 per cent in international markets during (1981-99)

• In 14 out of eighteen years during 1980-97 intra year instability in domestic prices was lower than the international instability

15

Weakness of the price Policy Intervention

• The persistence of Hunger and malnutrition in large parts of the country points out that the objective of minimum supply of food grains to consumers affordable price is yet to be fully achieved

• The objective of ensuring fair returns to producers is restricted to small number of producers in Punjab, Haryana, Western U.P. and parts of Rajasthan , T.N. and Andhra.

• The focused attention to wheat and rice as the target crops for price policy affected agricultural diversification to the high value crops. This resulted in low purchasing power for the producers elsewhere.

16

Salient Features of Achievements onFood Security

1. Incidence of Hunger reduced to below 2per cent. Income poverty declined to 26per cent in 1999.

2. Agricultural Growth and PublicDistribution System provide thefoundation of the Food Security.

3. Price policy interventions contributedsubstantially to the growth of foodgrainproduction

17

4 Price policy interventions alsocontributed to reducing the real prices offood grain and stabilize both intra-yearand inter year fluctuations

5 Direct programs to enhance entitlementsinclude both the asset redistributiveprograms and the employment programs.While these have succeeded in reducingpoverty and or severity of poverty andsecuring food security.

18

6 Costs associated with these programs arefound to be proportionately higher.Improvements in managing targetedprograms would go a long way inenhancing the food security of thevulnerable population.

7Faster economic growth trickled down tothe poor.

8 Resource depletion a challenge to asusstainable Food Security