Question

What is aaa.mention its role in ensuring food security in the country

Answer 1

Answer:

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Explanation:

The green revolution initiated in the late 1960s was a historic watershed that transformed the

food security situation in India. It tripled food grain production over the next three or four

decades and consequently reduced by over 50 percent both the levels of food insecurity and

poverty in the country, this was achieved in spite of the increase in population during the period,

which almost doubled. The country succeeded in the laudable task of becoming a food self-sufficient nation, at least at the macro level.

According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Food security has three components, viz., availability, access, and absorption (nutrition). The three are interconnected.

Food security means availability, accessibility, and affordability of food to all people at all times. The poor households are more vulnerable to food insecurity whenever there is a problem of production or distribution of food crops.

Food security depends on the Public Distribution System (PDS) and government vigilance and action at times, when this security is threatened. Public Distribution System (PDS) is an Indian food security system. Established by the Government of India under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution and are managed jointly by state governments in India, it distributes subsidized food and non-food items to India’s poor. This scheme was launched in India on June 1947. Major commodities distributed include staple food grains, such as wheat, rice, sugar, and kerosene, through a network of fair price shops (also known as ration shops) established in several states across the country. Food Corporation of India, a Government-owned corporation, procures and maintains the PDS.

What is food security?

Food is as essential for living as air is for breathing. But food security means something more than getting two square meals. Food security has the following dimensions

(a) availability of food means food production within the country, food imports and the previous years stock stored in government granaries.

(b) accessibility means the food is within reach of every person.

(c) affordability implies that an individual has enough money to buy sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet one’s dietary needs.

Thus, food security is ensured in a country only if

(1) enough food is available for all the persons

(2) all persons have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality and

(3) there is no barrier on access to food.

Ensuring food security ought to be an issue of great importance for a country like India where more than one-third of the population is estimated to be absolutely poor and one-half of all children malnourished in one way or another. There have been many emerging issues in the context of food security in India in the last two decades. These are:

Economic liberalization in the 1990s and its impact on agriculture and food security;

Establishment of WTO: particularly the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) under it;

Challenges of climate change; crisis of the three Fs, viz., food prices, fuel prices, and financial crisis

The phenomenon of hunger amidst plenty, i.e., accumulation of stocks in the early

years of this decade and in 2008-09 along with high levels of poverty;

Introduction of targeting in the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the first time

in the 1990s;

‘Right to Food’ campaign for improving food security in the country and the Supreme Court Orders on mid-day meal schemes;

Proposal for National Food Security Law (Right to Food); and

Monitorable targets under the Tenth and Eleventh Five Year Plans similar to the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty and women and child nutrition.

What is Minimum Support Price?

Minimum Support Price is the price at which government purchases crops from the farmers, whatever may be the price for the crops. Minimum Support Price is an important part of India’s agricultural price policy.

The MSP helps to incentivize the framers and thus ensures adequate food grains production in the country. It gives sufficient remuneration to the farmers, provides food grains supply to buffer stocks and supports the food security programme through PDS and other