Bridge Between Hunger & Food Security

It is a matter of pride for all of us that India has become the fifth largest exporter of agricultural commodities. But it is home to 1,946 lakh crore undernourished people too, the highest in the world, according to the annual report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This translates into over 15 per cent of India’s population, exceeding China in both absolute numbers and proportion of malnourished people in the country’s population. India’s gross domestic product grew 7.6 per cent in 2015-16 but this higher economic growth has not been fully translated into higher food consumption. 

- RG Agarwal

Indian agriculture currently faces a challenge of having to produce more from less to meet the needs of the growing human and animal population of the country under conditions of diminishing water resources and expanding environmental stress. To achieve this, India’s nearly 140 million rural families – mostly farmers owning up to two hectares of land each – will have to be provided with the best available technologies and scientific farming methods to raise their productivity, increase their income and manage natural resources and environment. The growing world population is projected to reach nine billion by 2050 (according to the United Nations) and we require 450 million tonnes of food grains to feed this population. Rural people make up a high percentage of the hungry and malnourished population in developing countries and efforts to promote growth in agriculture and the rural sector can be an important component of a strategy for promoting inclusive growth. There is widespread consensus that agriculture is lagging behind in our country and that it must do much better to support India’s overall high economic growth and dynamism.

India continues to have serious levels of widespread hunger forcing it to be ranked a lowly 97 among 118 developing countries for which the Global Hunger Index (GHI) was calculated in 2016. Countries worse than India include the extremely poor African countries such as Niger, Chad, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone, besides two of India’s neighbours: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its other neighbours like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are all ranked above India. The GHI is calculated by taking into account four key parameters: the shares of an undernourished population, the underweight and stunted children aged under five years and the infant mortality rate of the same age group.