Tag: food security in india

Food security means everybody is able to get enough healthy food to be well and active. For everybody to get enough food, we need a food system that works well. 

The company derives significant competitive advantage from its unique distribution network of bulk vending milk booths, retail outlets and mobile units. Mother Dairy ice creams launched in the year 1995 have shown continuous growth over the years and today boasts of approximately 62% market share in Delhi and NCR.

The food security system is composed of two components:
1- Maintaining a Buffer Stock of food grains purchased by the government by offering farmers the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
2- This foodgrain is distributed among the poorer sections of the society with the help of a Public Distribution System (PDS).

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) is the main agency for procurement, storage and distribution of food grains. In addition to the requirements of wheat and rice under the Targeted PDS, the Central Pool is required to have sufficient stocks of these in order to meet any emergencies like drought/failures of crop, as well as to enable open market intervention in case of price rise.

The economically backward states with high incidence of poverty, tribal and remote areas, and regions more prone to natural disasters etc. are more food insecure in India. These states include Orissa, Rajasthan, Jharkjand and parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Maharashtra.

In the urban areas the following types of people are more prone to food insecurity:
(i) Casual labourers
(ii) Workers employed in the ill paid occupations.
(iii) Workers employed in seasonal activities.

Problems crept up in the functioning of the ration shops, such as:
(i) The quality of the rationed articles issued to the poor is much less than what it should be.
(ii) Some of the ration shop dealers resort to malpractices.
(iii) Some of the ration shop dealers sell only poor quality of grains.
(iv) Some dealers do not open their shops regularly and the poor people can not draw their ration quota timely.

In 1981, Amartya Sen published Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), a book in which he argued that famine occurs not only from a lack of food, but from inequalities built into mechanisms for distributing food. Sen also argued that the Bengal famine was caused by an urban economic boom that raised food prices, thereby causing millions of rural workers to starve to death when their wages did not keep up.

Grain banks was set up by Maharashtra Academy of Development Science to facilitate a network of NGOs.

Kisan Credit Card Yojna was formulated to provide short term loans to farmers for agricultural needs.The loan was provided at subsidized interest rates by the government if the borrower maintained a good credit history. An additional 2% subsidy was provided if the borrower managed a sound record during the term of the loan.