How Crucial is Food Security?

Food security is a cardinal question that needs to be addressed by every State Government organization.

The Indian Upanishad says that “Annam bahu kurvita” which means multiply food and make it abundant. This touches upon point of production and supply or allocation. What is more important is not production alone but factors of accessibility, equality, possibility and capacity to procure.  This raises questions like chain of supply, the content of supply, location of supply and affordability of supply. If these questions are addressed properly one can safely assume that the food security can be an easy problem.

Government of India has been continuously trying to experiment by adding, modifying schemes since the beginning to address these issues of food management so as to ensure food availability and reach levels of food security.  In a nation of 100 crores where roughly 30% can safely be assumed to be oscillating between hunger and poverty, an initiative for a system building with proper planned infrastructure matched by state control and intervention policy can bring about the desired levels of nutritional adequacy, buffer stock reserves that can meet the unmet needs of people by subsidized price and at the same time focus on those who are helpless and fend on their own.

Government of India has moved away from Universal Public Distribution approach to targeted Public Distribution System (PDS) with the sole aim of providing succour to those who are needy and making up infrastructure requirements and also providing safety net for those who are vulnerable and also are left to vagaries of nature. The Antyodaya or Annapurna Yojana are examples of schemes of specific intervention aimed at covering those who are the poorest household  who  suffer the consequences of both market and non market phenomena like price fluctuations, stock levels, un-seasonal rain fall, unemployment and under employment. All these have a potency to create problems of food security to these sections of people. When we gave subsidy to the extent of 30,000 crores in terms of differential price, there is more a need to procure the food stocks properly manage it and deliver it properly. No doubt, there is also a need to reduce the costs of buying, storing and distributing, so that more incremental benefits can be passed on to the desired beneficiaries. But, there is a scope for creativity and improvement in the present circumstances also.

There are certain States which could provide glaring examples of diversion of food stocks and the Planning Commission has recently constituted a committee to monitor and watch such movements or diversions from the food safety and security angle. The reasons for diversion are not probably far to seek. The needed awareness and participation of people as beneficiaries is the sine quo non for an effective PDS to run. This means also a proper knowledge of entitlements and scanning of supplies through various channels at all levels.

Food security involves multi segments of society ranging from pregnant women and infants, to pre-school and youth, adults and old persons. If ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) caters to mothers and infants including pre-school, the Midday Meal Scheme is purportedly for adolescents in schooling process and the vulnerable families are either covered under BPL (Below Poverty Line) or AAY (Antyodaya Anna Yojana) categories. The Anapoorna scheme is aimed at old and destitute needing food support above 65 years while the adult working populations are to be given food supplementation for employment schemes under various schemes like DPAP (Drought Prone Area Programme), SGRY (Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojna), NFWP in existence. This food security involves guaranteed and assured supply of food that gives calories by proper identification and empowering the persons or groups through education and information of their entitlements. Ultimately, the purpose is to overcome protein calorie deficiency and create a food safety net by linking food chain with creation of community assets during normal and disaster situations. The other method is to make market availability of goods and services for maintaining assured supply levels in the open market and also by segmenting or targeting the groups who need protective care and State support.

The working of voluntary organizations in creating awareness and also monitoring the supplies by working as a bridge can’t be ignored. The self help groups created under various schemes of the State policy can decidedly work as a convergence platform for ensuring entitlements to reach the definite groups with lots of easiness. Some times in situations of calamitous nature, the community food bank schemes can work wonders. In endemic pockets of dry belts where agricultural production  is not smooth, running of such schemes by NGOs’ can promise nutritional support and also nurture a private public partnership of excellence.

Ultimately, it is also the regulation policies or measures, and the procurement or minimum support price policy and also channelising of FCI (Food Corporation of India) as a giant market player to stockpile and release stocks to market which are back hand measures to address the food vulnerability problems. Even sharing of economic data or crops and their prices can create wider network of information systems and this can also help the futures market to grow and supplement the food availability or security perspectives.

Against such a background, the need to focus on vulnerability analysis of areas or regions from food availability and security point of view assumes more significance. The mapping of areas and groups who face such problems due to factors of soil, weather, road conditions and poor health and also accessibility to infrastructure is a critical precondition for networking. Once this is done the system of correcting the data bank by additions or deletions can be streamlined and subsequent actions of sending food stocks and making them available by a monitoring and enforcement system becomes all the more mandatory. The need to correct the lapses of procedures or lengthy tiresome hassle ridden system becomes all the more acute. The FCI stocks pass through State godowns and subsequently through transport mechanisms to allotted retailers in countryside or town areas. All these processes require to be time bound, simplistic in its character and the beneficiaries also need to be told of the time chain involved and their probable timing when they could expect the supplies. They further need to know the quantity and the price as per their entitlement.  A vigilance committee experiment launched in few pockets can come to rescue of consumer’s by a mix of cross checking and validating the whole process of food delivery. Recently, in Gujarat, all such initiatives in the PDS sector like covering a time module unit,    display in shops entitlements and review of the status of families for grant of ration cards as a litmus test of food security have revealed successful lessons.  Of course, the State ought to come up with some best practices manual for guiding the consumers, retailers and also the godown caretakers, as to reduce losses, leakages and diversions, and increase the efficacy and speed of delivery mechanisms. Such practices can be made more viable and public by means of extension and information campaigns as to unravel the ruffled and gray areas or to define the roles and duties involved in the whole process.

The best practices which need enunciation can range from proper packing with description standards to weightment at time of issue. Similarly, random checking of samples at places of origin (FCI) or during transit to places of stacking (storage godowns) and third party inspection of procurement of goods like edible oil in terms of weight, quality and packaging are suggestive areas of good practices. At the consumer level, the awareness of entitlement with price of goods and its time of availability are compulsory variables while at the shop level, the display of price, its stock position and the hours of services of availability to consumers are also quite essential. The necessity of a supervising body at grass root level named village committee or food committee or vigilance committee can add zest and flavour to taste of consumer rights and nip all kinds of malpractices that can palpably evolve in case of rights not being not being exercised or enforced.

A reference to Rome Declaration in World Food Summit will underwrite the point that everyone has the right of access to safe and nutrition food and freedom from hunger. The apex court in India has taken the same view consistently over last  so many years and its judgments have also copiously brought out the mandatory duty of State to minute things for making possible food security and visible at field level for all groups as pronounced in 2002.

The whole gamut of food security, therefore, is an amalgam of food availability, distribution and accessibility issues. It implies measures to enhance productivity, and also create infrastructure for accessibility of consumers while assuring the distributive programmes to fall in line with a mix of equity through delivery outposts. All these ultimately mean human development goals as also creation of social safety nets. To make these entire meaningfully possible, not only it is incumbent to know the purchasing power of vulnerable sections but also to set right the market operations to make such purchasing power perform. That may involve to some extent subsidy schemes for making food reach homes with some penal strokes utilization of food  has, therefore, to be watched  both from angle of need and actuality. An empirical approach keeping in mind, the age, sex and type of beneficiary in the context of a region or season also has to be adopted to make food availability or utilization practical. This has to necessarily address the   knowledge, practices, nourishment levels, type of climate, nature of crops grown in the area and the relevant health indications or dietary habits of the people who are meant to be covered.

It is now a felt realization that women need to play a key role as handholding partners in the entire process to prevent leakages, upgrade the social reach of food security. The food assistance programmes may be in sectors of agriculture, nutrition, poverty alleviation or disaster mitigation but in each sector they can play a fundamental role. Whether it is reaching out to socially or economically unprivileged (social safety net factor) or carrying out food for work schemes (poverty alleviation factor) or school meal programme (Human ‘Resources development linked factor) or relief food distribution (disaster mitigation area), the State can rest upon women as the driving force to reach the targets and snuff out the gaps in outreaching the same. They can play the role of first responder in food security questions and their support would be crucial to the drawing of food security map, either of WFP (World Food Programme), or NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) or Planning Commission. Beginning from achieving autarky levels (self sufficiency where consumption needs are met by production) to confronting the tasks of malnutrition or micro-nutrient deficiency, known as hidden hunger or silent emergency as brought out in report of WFP (Oxford 2001), the women can foster for themselves, the role of an initiator, auditor, responder and coordinator to pool the myriad forces and attain the required levels of preparedness away from any inertia or breakdowns.

Such role of women can be structured or formalized. Either self help groups can handle the various inputs or outposts of the food security process. PRI can help to involve them compulsively as a catalyst factor in translating episodes of food security into actions of accessible nature.

To sum up, the food security phenomena perse visualizes a wide range of variables beginning from crops sown or required to be sown, to stocks of grains that need to be procured, and delivered in a structure functional setting bearing in mind, the relevant micro factors of regions and population which are targeted under its regime. This is to be enabled by a process of democratic participation and mass awareness with exercise of quality checks on the system, all meant to protect the rights of individuals. The philosophy definitely beyond this is “we have to eat to live” if not “we live to eat”.

Dr Sudip Kumar Nanda: He is a Government Civil Servant in Government of Gujarat- India. He can be contacted via email on sknanda56@yahoo.com.