Challenges to Food Security in India

Abstract

Food security is access to enough food by all people at all time for an active and healthy life. India is truly developing now and its income, infrastructure, per capita income has also developed .But the major problem faced by India is “the problem food management and it’s distribution”. Agriculture is very important to India, employing 55% of its population and providing 16.5% of its annual GDP. Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output..India is the largest producer in the world of milk, cashew nuts, coconuts, tea, ginger, turmeric and black pepper. It also has the world’s largest cattle population (281 million). It is the second largest producer of wheat, rice, sugar, groundnut and inland fish. It is the third largest producer of tobacco. India accounts for 10% of the world fruit production with first rank in the production of banana. Despite ensuring ample availability of food, existence of food insecurity at the micro-level in the country has remained a formidable challenge for India. In the recently released Global Hunger Index of 2013, India ranked 63rd out of 120 countries and this report is quite disturbing because India is one of the largest producers of food in the world. Still India is not in the condition to meet the basic food requirements of people. There are many people in India who strive hard even for the square meals. I don’t say that people in village areas are facing this problem, but also people in major cities face the same problems!!Lack of food supply and the nutritional deficiency causes not only a bad mark for the country’s image in the international level, but also causes adverse effect on country’s developing economic policies and it’s structure. Mismanagement of food products and it’s supply also puts country under many dreadful diseases too! This paper is focused on the several foods security issues prevalent in the Indian scenario. Data are taken from relevant sources to analysis the gravity of the food security issues in India. It also covered the several development programmes taken up by the Indian government to counter various food security issues including several schemes and yojanas. India’s biggest challenge still remains ensuring food and nutritional security to its masses.