Per
capita Production and Availability:
When
resources (especially Land) and technology constraints limit the aggregate food
production, its negative impact on food security at the household and
individual level can be minimized to some extent by the efforts on
curtailing population growth rates within tolerable rates[1].
Another way to feed the ever-growing population is to achieve the higher
fertility rates. Table: 3 presents the data of Yield Per hectare of major food grains
in the country.
The fertility of wheat has shown
considerable growth from 750 kg/hectare in 1953-54 to 1630 kg/hectare in
1980-81 and to 2281 kg/hectare in 1990-91 and 2708 kg/hectare in 2000-01. The
yield per hectare of wheat was 2938 kg/hectare in 2010-11.
Food grains production trends
according to major crops indicate non-uniform trends. The substantially higher
growth rate of above 4 per cent experienced for rice during the 1980s has
declined to 1.68 per cent during 1990s. Food grain production has been almost
stagnant for more than 10 years and now there is a growing gap between supply
and demand of food grains[1].The
emerging trends in India’s food grains output can be seen in Figure:1 output
has been fluctuating sharply.
The availability of food grains,
derived from the accounting identity involving production levels, stock changes
and trade balance, can be considered as a good estimate of the aggregate
consumption, and in spite of the limitations imposed by the problems in
obtaining stock changes. The average daily per capita availability of food grains
in 1970s remained slightly at a lower level than in the 1960s, but the 1980s
and 1990s witnessed a moderate improvement in the availability level[2].
Remember it also includes the grains spoiled in the godowns of FCI India. Table
-4 presents net availability of food grains for various years from 1951 to
2010. It also includes data on availability of rice, wheat, other cereals gram,
and pulses.
There
is an improvement in the per capita net availability of food grains over the
decades but one cannot notice any perceptible upward trend in the net
availability. On the contrary, what one notices is the YoY variability in the
availability. This may be due to fluctuations in area and productivity. During
the 1990s both area and yield levels indicated a reduction in the variability
due to increased production and huge stock
position with the government. However it should be emphasized that physical
access alone will not ensure the food security unless it is matched by economic
access i.e. the purchasing power with the poor.
To ensure the economic access of
the poor the government of India has come up with a very ambitious plan of
providing food at subsidised rates to almost all the population. Government has
introduced a National food security Bill in the Parliament on 22 December 2011
to ensure the adequate safety for 400 million poor. Let us now discuss some
salient features of the bill.
[1] Badar alam Iqbal and Theo
van Der Merwe”Food Crisis in India (A Review Article)”,Asian Journal of
Agricultural Economics
[2] P.S.George(1999) op.cit. p
473
