Concept of Food Security:
World population now
is about 7 billion and about 925 million people do not have enough food to eat.
About Two-thirds of the world’s hungry people lives in just seven countries -
China, India, Bangladesh Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Pakistan. The concept
of food security, as understood now, has been evolved over the last quarter
century. Food security concept has been considered at a number of levels:
global, regional national, state, household and individual. While the ultimate
concern may be at the individual level it is important to realise that food
security at the levels outside the preview of the individual and households
have strong bearing at the performance at the individual level.
According to FAO (1983) the basic concept of food security implied
that “all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the
basic food they need”.
The World Bank (1986) indicates that food security is
“access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Its
essential elements are the availability of food and the ability to acquire it”.
M.S Swaminathan says, “Food security implies livelihood
security at the level of each household and all members within and involves
ensuring both physical and economic access to balanced diet, safe drinking
water, environmental sanitation, primary education and basic health care.
On the basis of the above definitions providing enough food
to all population at all times in a country like India is a challenging task.
Further the population in India is growing fast so the demand for food is
growing every day. Besides this the improved purchasing power among poor will further
enhance the demand for superior food and balanced diet. It has also been
recognised that physical availability of
food grains alone will not ensure the eradication of hunger from the country. Economic
access to food for all population especially the poor and the vulnerable
sections will have to be ensured through appropriate income transfer to the
poor. The 12th Plan approach paper says, “The challenge is how to
feed India’s growing population with rising incomes, but limited land and water
resources. The economy is expected to grow strongly and pressure on food demand
is likely to remain strong over the 12th plan period.” In the light
of these observations it is essential to grow enough food because this is the
essential condition for ensuring the food security. Although the production of
food grains have increased over the years but experts say it is slowing down.
For any programme of food security the rate of growth of food grains must be above
the rate of growth of population.
