FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA: CONCEPTS, REALITIES AND INNOVATIONS by Prof. B.J. Lathi and Prof. Parag Narkhede


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Food security, in general, is increasingly affected by global economic and environmental phenomena. Under this, the food prices are affected due to food scarcity which causes social and political instability, and can escalate humanitarian crisis. In this context it is better to study the definition of food security given by the Rome Declaration on World Food Security at the World Food Summit, held in 1996. Here the researchers wanted to understand the impact of food security w.r.t. a Global concern. The definition as per the Rome Declaration is, “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”. On the same guidelines India’s initiatives to ensure food security for its citizen’s ranges from concerted efforts to boost agricultural production to far-ranging market interventions aimed at price stabilisation. Besides, measures have been introduced to improve the access to food of the poor people through public distribution and income generating schemes. Some of the schemes have been highlighted in the paper. The problem of underinvestment in agriculture as far as the status of India w.r.t. world is compounded during economic turmoil, because when both private and public budgets contract, investments tend to be cut to a greater extent than other expenditures in all sectors – including agriculture. In trying to cope with the burden of consecutive food and economic crises certain advances in the area of bio-nanotechnology would go a long way in helping food security. Bionanotechnology will take agriculture from the era of genetically modified GM crops to the brave new world of atomically modified organisms. This paper is divided into three parts and deals with conceptual review, realities-government measures and finally innovations towards food security.