Food Security : Need,Access and Challenges

Poverty, Nutrition and Food security Nutrition security safety nets for the economically under privileged population should be based on a life cycle approach, starting with pregnant mothers and ending with old and infirm persons. Attention to maternal and foetal under nutrition is particularly urgent, since in many developing countries every third child born is under weight. Such low birth weight children suffer from many handicaps including impaired cognitive abilities. Denying a child, even at birth, an opportunity for the full expression of his/her innate genetic potential for mental and physical development is the cruelest form of inequity. Therefore those engaged in nutrition education and intervention should give priority to pregnant women belonging to the economic and socially underprivileged sections of society.

The public distribution system (PDS) ensures the distribution of essential items such as selected cereals, sugar and kerosene at subsidized prices to holders of ration cards. The PDS also helps to modulate open - market prices for commodities that are distributed through the system. The object is to identify the persons/families living below poverty line (BPL) and issue a distinct ration card for selling specified cereal items through PDS outlets at specially subsidized rates viz. half the normal issue price under PDS.

Corporate farming has been criticised by the economists and agriculture scientists. The ability of small farmers to make their land productive has been noticed by no less than the World Bank, which declared in its 2008 World Development Report that “The record on the superiority of smallholder farming as a form of organization is striking.” The Report further noted that small farmers “use their resources more efficiently than larger farmers.”

In recent years, climate change, energy supply, and food supply have become high-profile concerns in the context of security. The skyrocketing of energy and food prices in the early half of 2008 sent shock waves throughout the world’s economies, reaching into the corners of everyday life. The price surge was partly the result of financial maneuvering by speculators, namely, a good of investment in oil and food futures.

Now there is an urgent need for a second phase of green revolution to meet the needs of ever-growing population on by the shrinking farming area. There is a need to develop new varieties of crops which might give high productivity on the less land and without using chemical fertilizers.