Food
security is the condition in which everyone gets sufficient food; in other words, there is enough (nutritious) food
available at affordable rates. There are three basic components of the food economy — availability, access and utilization. Food
security thus depends on the demand & supply, distribution and consumption of food.
Food is the most basic of requirements, but food prices are rising continuously. This is bound to affect our monthly budget. Just to meet one’s food expenditure, an individual would have to sacrifice some other expense - say education or healthcare - to buy the food items that he (and his family) needs.
The per capita income in India is rising. This is both a curse, and a blessing. Though this is improving the purchasing power of the common man, it is also increasing the demand for more nutritious food… However, even though India has more than enough to feed its entire population, this is only true for the urban populace and the middle class (who have the extra money to spend). The other half of India – the rural poor, who constitute some 50% of the populace – continues to face near starvation conditions.
Rural folk in India reduce the risk of food insecurity by
growing their own food. But the author says that more and more farmers, lured by the prospect of immediate gains, are shifting from their (traditional) food crops and focusing on cash crops instead. This shift to cash crops poses an additional threat to food security in this country. The reasons are not far to seek:
• By growing cash crops, less land is available for growing food crops
• The shortfall in food crops affects the food supply
• And as far as profits are concerned, the “middlemen” and moneylenders are the main beneficiaries.
The problem is compounded by the fact that many farmers are now growing biofuel crops (such as corn, maize or sugarcane) – to meet the insatiable demand for gasoline.
India’s agriculture is mostly rain-fed and heavily dependant upon the annual monsoons. Thus, an unstable rainfall pattern, an increase in droughts and floods, and the other adverse effects associated with climate change will badly damage our capacity to grow food crops in the future.
As of now, the problem is not the availability of food grains – but how much the rural poor can afford to pay for them. They are sensitive to even small hikes in the cost of food grains as their purchasing power is limited.