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Hunger, Under-Nutrition and Food Security in India

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Poverty, Chronic Poverty and Poverty Dynamics

Abstract

In the past two decades since India achieved high economic growth, a curious problem has haunted the country and vexed its policy makers: India’s rising GDP has had little impact on food security and the nutrition levels of its population. Per capita availability as well as consumption of food grains has declined; the cereal intake of the bottom 30% of the population continues to be much less than that of the top two deciles of the population, despite the latter group’s better access to fruits, vegetables and meat products; the calorie consumption of the bottom half of the population has been consistently going down since 1987; the percentage of under-nourished stunted children was as high as 39% in 2014; and more than half of India’s women and three-quarters of its children are anaemic, with little decline in these estimates in the past eight years, resulting in maternal mortality and underweight babies. As part of the world community, India had pledged to halve hunger by 2015, as stated in the Millennium Development Goal 1, but the available data shows that this target has not been met.

With necessary permissions, this chapter draws heavily from Saxena (2011). It also draws on the author’s other previous articles.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The commonly accepted definition adopted at the 1996 World Food Summit is: food security is achieved 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.

  2. 2.

    http://www.hrln.org/hrln/pdf/rtf/reports/Hunger%20under%20nutrition%20and%20food%20security%20in%20India.pdf.

  3. 3.

    http://www.hrln.org/hrln/pdf/rtf/reports/Hunger%20under%20nutrition%20and%20food%20security%20in%20India.pdf.

  4. 4.

    Deficiency in micro-nutrients is often referred to as endemic hunger. However, micro-nutrients do not work unless the person is consuming sufficient calories, protein, etc.

  5. 5.

    Roy Rajat 2008: Endemic Hunger in West Bengal, Economic & Political Weekly May 3.

  6. 6.

    Kumaran (2008) and NSSO (2014b): Nutritional Intake in India, 2011–12, NSS 68th Round, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, New Delhi.

  7. 7.

    It is likely that eating out for all classes has increased. Cereal content of meals taken outside at own cost or at public cost is hardly known and is not fully captured in the NSSO data.

  8. 8.

    Production of other forms of food, such as fruits, vegetables, poultry, and livestock products, has increased at a faster rate, but on the whole, there is no improvement in food and nutritional security (Chand and Jumrani 2013).

  9. 9.

    One of the reasons for decline in availability is the increase in government stocks.

  10. 10.

    The average calorie norm of 2110 kcal per capita per day prescribed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for South Asia (Bajpai et al. 2005) in the 1980s is much lower than the 2400 kcal norm that has been typically used by the GOI. The latest calorie norm used by the FAO for India is 1820 kcal (Menon et al. 2008), which would reduce the percentage of under-nourished people to only 17.5 (Chand and Jumrani 2013) in 2010–12.

  11. 11.

    icmr.nic.in/final/rda-2010.pdf.

  12. 12.

    icmr.nic.in/ijmr/2015/august/9.pdf.

  13. 13.

    https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-health-nutrition/article/trends-in-nutritional-status-and-nutrient-intakes-and-correlates-of-overweightobesity-among-rural-adult-women-1860-years-in-india-national-nutrition-monitoring-bureau-nnmb-national-surveys/A67E56D436D88D02109DBA208059C3B0.

  14. 14.

    Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and West Bengal.

  15. 15.

    Rapid Survey on Children.

  16. 16.

    http://www.unsystem.org/scn/Publications/SCNNews/scnnews36.pdf (accessed on 7 July 2014).

  17. 17.

    According to FAO, after a decline of 20 million in the number of undernourished people between 1990–92 and 1995–97, the number of hungry people in India increased from 201.8 million in 1995–97 to 212.0 million in 2001–03.

  18. 18.

    Rural wages increased significantly during 2004 and 2012 because of better agricultural growth, and demand from construction industry and NREGA, but have again fallen sharply after 2012.

  19. 19.

    www.chronicpoverty.org/uploads/publication_files2/CPRC-IIPA%2044-new.pdf.

  20. 20.

    Report of the committee on encouraging investments in supply chains including provision for cold storages for more efficient distribution of farm produce, Development Policy Division, Planning Commission, New Delhi, May 2012.

  21. 21.

    http://indiagovernance.gov.in/files/food-and-nutrition-security.pdf.

  22. 22.

    inclusion.skoch.in/story/875/has-rural-india-seen-a-turnaround-lately-1175.html.

  23. 23.

    Many of them get kerosene only.

  24. 24.

    http://indiatogether.org/articles/rationtocashaharshtransitionpoverty/; print. Also see http://thewire.in/16373/opting-out-of-the-jam/.

  25. 25.

    Modi’s DBT Review 1: Chandigarh Stumbles But Project Needs Support http://swarajyamag.com/economy/arbitraryinclusionsandexclusionsmakeitaroughrideforcashtransferspilotinchandigarh.

  26. 26.

    This and the next section draw heavily from author’s previous article published as Saxena 2016.

  27. 27.

    These are generally one or two room structures, where children gather for about four hours every morning for various ICDS activities.

  28. 28.

    http://hrln.org/2006-pucl-vs-union-of-india-and-others-civil-writ-petition-196-of-2001/.

  29. 29.

    http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-03-06/india/37499356_1_cag-audit-icds-malnourished-children and http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/substandard-food-being-distributed-by-anganwadis_834305.html (accessed on 7 July 2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Planning Commission, GOI, New Delhi, India

    N. C. Saxena

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  1. N. C. Saxena
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, India

    Aasha Kapur Mehta

  2. Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India

    Shashanka Bhide

  3. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, India

    Anand Kumar

  4. Center for Development Alternatives, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

    Amita Shah

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Saxena, N.C. (2018). Hunger, Under-Nutrition and Food Security in India. In: Mehta, A., Bhide, S., Kumar, A., Shah, A. (eds) Poverty, Chronic Poverty and Poverty Dynamics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0677-8_4

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