S RAJESWARI

BT ASST. SOCIAL SCIENCE

GHSS NELLIKUPPAM
CHENGALPET DISTRICT
 •Food is defined as any
substance that people eat and
drink to maintain life and
growth.
Introduction •Food security would denote a
person’s ability to eat enough,
stay active and lead a healthy
life.
 • The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture
Organisation defines food security as
follows:
Food Security “Food security exists when all people, at all
times, have physical, social and economic
access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food
which meets their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and healthy life.”
(FAO, 2009)
• Dr.M.S.Swaminathan, nutrition security is:
“physical, economic and social access to a
balanced diet, safe drinking water,
environmental hygiene, primary health care
and primary education”
 The three basic components
Basic of food and nutrition security.
components
of food and They are
nutrition • availability,
security • access
• absorption:
 •Availability of food is
physical availability of food
Availability of
stocks in desired quantities,
food which is a function of
domestic production,
changes in stocks and
imports.
 Access to food is primarily a matter
of purchasing power and is
therefore closely linked with the
capabilities and employment
Access to opportunities to earn.

food
Capabilities and opportunities in
turn are related to one’s access to
assets and education
Absorption of food

•Absorption of food is the ability to

biologically utilise the food consumed.
 • Thus food security for people in a country is not
only dependent on the quantum of food available
but also on the ability of people to purchase/access
food and to stay in appropriate healthy
environment.
• A growing country with a massive population was
Availability and perceived to be a potential candidate for revolution.
• The American administration and philanthropic
Access to Food organisations like Ford Foundation formulated a
Grains plan to increase food production in the country by
introducing High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of wheat
and rice.
• This programme was implemented in select districts
where irrigation was assured.
• The results were promising and the programme was
extended to cover a larger number of districts.
• Thus, Green Revolution was born in the country paving way for self-
sufficiency in food grain production.
• Increased food grain production was made possible by an increase
area cultivated with HYV of rice and wheat as also an increase in the
yield of these major cereal crops.
• The food situation has steadily improved over a period of 65 years.
• Area under food grain cultivation has grown to 122 million hectares,
with an increase of fivefold increase in food grain production.
• Yield of food grains has increased four-fold between the time of
independence and at present.
 • Tamil Nadu has adopted an ‘Universal’ PDS, the
rest of the states in India had a ‘Targeted’ PDS.
• Under universal PDS all the family ration card
Public holders are entitled to the supplies from PDS.
Distribution • In the targeted PDS, the beneficiaries are
identified based on certain criteria and given
System their entitlements, leaving out the rest.
• Both the Union and the State governments
subsidised the supplies distributed through PDS.
• The level and quantum of subsidy also varied
across states.
• Subsequently, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by
the Indian parliament in 2013.
• The NFSA covers 50% of urban households and 75% of the rural
households.
• These households are known as priority households identified based
on a set of criteria.
• Priority households of this country now have the right to food supply
through PDS.
• The Union government supplies rice at the rate of ` 3 per kg, wheat
at the rate of ` 2 per kg, and millets at the rate of ` 1 per kg under
NFSA. Tamil Nadu continues to have the universal system of PDS and
supplies rice at free of cost to all card holders.
 • Consumer cooperatives play an important
Role of role in the supply of quality goods at
responsible rates to common people.
Consumer
• There is a three-tier structure of consumer
Cooperatives cooperative societies in India.
in Food • They are primary consumer cooperative
Security societies.
• This scheme is playing an important role in
food security in India.
• For example out of all fair price shops running
in Tamil Nadu, around 94% are being run by
cooperatives.
 Purchasing power is the value of
a currency expressed in terms of
the amount of goods or services
Purchasing that one unit of money can buy.

Power
Price increases purchasing
power declines and vice versa.
 1. Over population
Factors • The population growth rate in
India is high as 1.7 per 1000.
affecting Large population leads to
increasing demand, but supply
Purchasing was not equal to the demand.
• So, the normal price level will be
Power going an higher.
• So it affect purchasing power,
especially in rural population.
 2. Increasing prices of
essential goods
Factors • Even though there has been a
constant growth in the GDP and
affecting growth opportunities in the
Indian economy, there have been
Purchasing steady increase in the prices of
essential goods.
Power • The continuous rise in the prices
erodes the purchasing power and
adversely affect the poor people.
 3. Demand for
Factors goods
affecting •When demand for
Purchasing goods increases, the
Power price of goods increases
then the purchasing
power is affected.
 4. Price of goods
Factors affect the value of
currency
affecting
Purchasing •When the price increases
the purchasing power
Power decreases and finally the
value of currency
decreases.
 5. Production and supply of
goods
Factors
affecting
Purchasing The production and supply of
goods decline, the price of
Power goods increases, then the
purchasing power is affected.
 6. Poverty and inequality
• There exists a huge economic
Factors disparity in the Indian economy.
The proportion of income and
affecting assets owned by top 10% of Indian
goes on increasing.
Purchasing • This has led to an increase in the
poverty level in the society.
Power • Generally purchasing power is
affected by poverty and unequal
distribution of wealth also.
 • The new agricultural policy based on export of
agricultural goods was announced by the Central
Government in 2018.
• This policy states that the government has decided
to remove export restrictions on most organic and
Agricultural processed agricultural products.
Policy in • Agricultural policy of a country is mostly designed
by the Government for raising agricultural
India production and productivity and also for raising the
level of income and standard of living of farmers
within a definite time frame.
• This policy is formulated for all-round and
comprehensive development of the agricultural
sector.
 The following are some of the
important objectives of india’s
agricultural policy

Agricultural 1. Raising the productivity of inputs

Policy in
• One of the important objectives
India of India’s agricultural policy is to
improve the productivity of
inputs so purchased like, HYV
seeds, fertilisers, pesticides,
irrigation projects etc
Objectives of India's agricultural policy

2. Raising value-added per hectare

•Agricultural policy is to increase per hectare
value-added by raising the productivity of
agriculture in general and productivity of
small and marginal holding in particular.
Objectives of India's agricultural policy

3. Protecting the interests of poor farmers

• Agricultural policy is proposed to protect the
interests of poor and marginal farmers by
abolishing intermediaries through land reforms,
expanding institutional credit support to poor
farmers etc.
 4. Modernising
Objectives agricultural sector
• Here the policy support
of India's includes the introduction of
agricultural modern technology in
agricultural operations and
policy application of improved
agricultural inputs like HYV
seeds, fertilizers etc
 5. Environmental
Objectives degradation
of India's •Agricultural policy of India
agricultural has set another objective
to check environmental
policy degradation of natural
base of Indian agriculture.
 6. Removing
objectives bureaucratic obstacles
• The policy has set another
of India's objective to remove
agricultural bureaucratic obstacles on the
farmers’ co-operative
policy societies and self-help
institutions so that they can
work independently.
Multi-dimensional Nature of Poverty

• The Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was launched by the

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford
Poverty Human Development Initiative (OPHI) in 2010.
• The basic philosophy and significance of MPI is that it is based on the
idea that poverty is not unidimensional, and that it is rather multi-
dimensional.
• Multi-dimensional poverty is made up of several factors that
constitute poor people’s experience of deprivation such as health,
education, living standards, income, disempowerment, quality of
work and threat from violence.
 • Over the last decades, Tamil Nadu
Multi- has made a significant progress in
dimensional poverty reduction.
Poverty Index • The districts in Tamil Nadu are
classified into three categories,
2018 Report namely high-poverty districts (more
in Tamil than 40% of the population living
Nadu below poverty line), moderately
poor districts (30% to 40%) and low
level poverty districts (below 30%).
 Status of Nutrition
• We noted earlier that food security includes
nutrition security too. Though our country
has reached selfsufficiency in food
production, the nutrition status of the
Nutrition population has not seen corresponding levels
of improvement.
and Health • About 41% of the rural and 31% of urban
children are stunted, that is, they are not of

Status the required height in correspondence to

their age.
• Another indicator of nutrition deficiency
among children is “underweight”, which is
weight in relation to age. In India, in 2015–
16, about 20% of children(in the age group of
6–59 months) in rural and urban India are
estimated to be underweight.
 • A substantial number of Indian children and
women are underweight, anaemic and suffer
from micronutrient deficiencies.
• To address these concerns, the Central and
Nutrition and state governments have been channellising
Health Status substantial resources into various health and
nutrition schemes and programmes like
in Tamil Nadu Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS),
mid-day meals, Reproductive and Child Health
Programmes (RCH) and National Rural Health
Mission (NRHM).
• However, an effective scaling up of these
efforts is required to mitigate the incidence of
under-nutrition in the country.
• The Government of Tamil Nadu’s policy for “A Malnutrition Free Tamil
Nadu” guides the state’s long-term multi-sectoral strategy for
eliminating malnutrition.
• The goal is “reducing human malnutrition of all types to the levels of
best performing countries”.
• In Tamil Nadu, ICDS is being implemented through 54,439 Child Centres
(comprising 49,499 Anganwadi Centres and 4,940 Mini Anganwadi
Centres) in 434 Child Development Blocks (385 rural, 47 urban and 2
tribal) The PTMGRNMP is considered to be the largest noon meal
programme in the country for combating malnutrition among children,
increasing primary school enrolment and reducing dropout rates.
• Other states in the country have modelled their noon meal programmes
along the lines of Tamil Nadu’s pioneering efforts.