Incidence of Hunger and its Determinants Across Major States of India

Abstract

The present paper attempted to examine the status of hunger across major states of India by conceptualizing it in terms of calorie under-nourishment. It argued that unlike the methodology of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (2009), hunger should be analyzed solely in terms of calorie under-nourishment and not in combination with child underweight and under- five mortality rate. This is because child underweight and under-five mortality rate could be the effects of hunger, but could never be the reflections of the state of hunger by any means. A multivariate analysis in the form of logistic regression was also carried out to explore the determinants of hunger. The study revealed that hunger is very severe in India as not a single state falls in the 'low hunger' or 'moderate hunger' category. The results of the logistic regression model showed that hunger is negatively and significantly influenced by per-capita food grain production, while it is positively and significantly affected by poverty, price level, and economic growth. These findings exert the importance of food availability in the form of per capita food grain production coupled with poverty reduction and controlling price level in a fight against hunger. The positive and significant influence of economic growth on hunger highlights the failure of the trickle-down effect. This urgently calls for the shift of emphasis from growth to grass root development in reducing hunger.