Food security bill

• 1. Ensuring food security ought to be an issue of great importance for a countrylike India where more than one-third of the population is estimated to beabsolutely poor and one-half of all children malnourished in one way or another. Therehave been many emerging issues in the context of food security in India in the lasttwo decades.

2. These are: (i) economic liberalization in the 1990s and its impact onagriculture 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., foodprices, fuel prices, and financial crisis;(iv) the phenomenon of hunger amidst plenty, i.e., accumulation ofstocks 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; 3. (vi) Right to Food campaign for improving food security in thecountry and the Supreme Court Orders on mid-day meal schemes; (vii) proposal for National Food Security Law (Right to Food); and(viii) monitor able targets under the Tenth and Eleventh Five YearPlans similar to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) onpoverty and women and child nutrition. 4. Food security happens when all people at alltimes have access to enough food that... is affordable, safe and healthy is culturally acceptable meets specific dietary needs is obtained in a dignified manner is produced in ways that are environmentallysound and socially just 5. According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Chronically food insecure : large numbers FAO : 230 M undernourished Dietary Energy supply : 2360 kcal/cap/day Global Hunger Index : India ranks 94 WFP-MSSRF Report : Alarming trends on seven indicators Indias high economic growth rate in the past decade has notbeen fully reflected in the health status of its people, with 22 percent of its population undernourished. economic liberalization in the 1990s and its impact onagriculture and food security. 11. challenges of climate change; crisis of the three Fs, viz., foodprices, fuel prices, and financial crisis 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.