Abstract
After 60 years of planned economic development, the Indian economy has many achievements to its credit, but the ability to provide its vast population with an adequate, let alone balanced, diet is, sadly, not one of them. While India experienced widespread famines with surprising regularity in the past, independent India can be said to have avoided that. However, hunger and malnutrition have continued to plague India to this day, despite the dramatic improvements in its economic growth in recent decades. This chapter examines the evolution of India’s food economy and its administration since independence in some of its relevant aspects. Its purpose is to understand the underlying issues by identifying the factors and forces responsible for the unresolved problem of India’s food and nutrition insecurity and its concomitant, the widespread maternal and child undernutrition. It looks at the current situation in respect of the availability and affordability of food, and how they affect people at different levels of affluence in both rural and urban India. It then turns to the examination of food and nutrition policies and their interaction with poverty, its measurement and alleviation. The passing of the National Food Security Act in 2013, guaranteeing access to food as a right, is discussed next to assess how its provisions might influence India’s quest for greater food and nutrition security. The chapter finishes on some general observations on the food sector of the Indian economy.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Aguayo, V. Singh. G. and N. Badgaiyan. 2014. Scoring child nutrition in India: measuring the performance of States. Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XLIV No 14, April 5, 2014. 97–103.
Anderson, S.A. 1990. The 1990 Life Sciences Research Office (LSRO) Report on Nutritional Assessment defined terms associated with food access: Core indicators of Nutritional state for difficult to sample populations. The Journal of Nutrition, 1559–1660.
Balani, S. 2013. Functioning of the public distribution system: an analyitiac report. PRS Legislative Research, New Delhi.
Basu, D. and A. Basole. 2012. The calorie consumption puzzle in India: an empirical investigation. http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers_251-300/WP285.pdf. Accessed 8 July 2014.
Chatterjee, S., A.N. Rae, and R. Ray. 2010. Globalisation, India’s evolving food economy and trade prospects for Australia and New Zealand. In Globalisation, agriculture and development: perspectives from the Asia-Pacific, ed. A. Siddique, and M. Tonts. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Dandekar, V.M., and N. Rath. 1971. Poverty in India. Pune: Indian School of Political Economy.
De Onis, M., C. Monteiro, J. Akre, and G. Glugston. 1993. The worldwide magnitude of protein energy malnutrition: an overview from the WHO database on child growth. Bulletin of the WHO, No. 71, 703–712. http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/economics/discussionpapers/EDP-1211.pdf. Accessed 10 July 2014.
Deaton, A., and J. Dreze. 2009. Food and nutrition in India: facts and interpretations. Economic and Political Weekly 44(7): 42–65.
Deaton, A., and J. Dreze. 2010. Nutrition, poverty and calorie fundamentalism: Response to Utsa Patnaik. Economic and Political Weekly 45(14): 78–80.
FAO. 2000. The state of food insecurity in the world. Rome: Food and Agricultural Organisation of United Nations.
FAO. 2011. Hunger: What are the hunger targets? Retrieved 25 August 2012.
FAO. 2014. The State of World Food Insecurity. Rome: FAO.
Gaiha, R., N. Kaicker, K .S. Imai and G. Thapa. 2012. Demand for nutrients in India: an analysis based on the 50th, 61st and 66th rounds of the NSS. http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/economics/discussionpapers/EDP-1211.pdf. Accessed on 10 July 2014.
Gillespie, S. 2013. Myths and realities of child nutrition. Economic and Political Weekly 48(34): 64–68.
Gopalan, C. 1992. Under-nutrition: measurement and implications. In Nutrition and poverty, ed. S. Osmani. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Government of India. 1993. Report of the expert group on estimation of proportion and number or poor. New Delhi: Planning Commission.
Government of India. 2005. Performance evaluation of targeted public distribution system (TPDS). New Delhi: Planning Commission.
Government of India. 2008. Eleventh Five Year Plan. Vol. 1 and Vol.2. Planning Commission. New Delhi.
Government of India. 2011. Our census, our future. New Delhi: Ministry of home Affairs.
Government of India. 2012. Twelfth Five Year Plan. New Delhi: Planning Commission.
Government of India. 2013. National food security act. New Delhi: Department of Food and Public Distribution.
Government of India. 2014. Report of the Expert Group to review the methodology for estimation of poverty. New Delhi: Planning Commission.
Government of India, Ministry of Finance. Economic Survey 2007–08.
Government of India. Ministry of Finance: Economic Survey 2005–06.
Haddad, L. 2011. Why India needs a national nutrition strategy. British Medical Journal 343.
Harriss, B. 1990. The intra-family distribution of hunger in South Asia, in Dreze, J. and Sen, A. (eds.), The Political Economy of Hunger. Vol. 1: Entitlements and Wellbeing, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Indian Council of Medical Research. 2013. Nutrient requirement and recommended dietary allowances for Indians. http://www.icmr.nic.in/final/RDA-2010.pdf. Accessed 7 July 2014.
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2010. Global hunger index. Bonn/Washington D.C.
International Food Policy Research Institute. 2014. Global hunger index. Washington DC/Dublin: Bonn.
Ittyerah, A.C. 2013. Food security in India: issues and suggestions for effectiveness. Theme paper for the 57th Members’ Annual Conference, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi.
Jelliffe, D.B. 1966. The assessment of the nutritional status of the community. WHO Monograph No. 53. Geneva.
Jha, S., P.V. Srinivasan, and M. Landes. 2007. Indian wheat and rice sector policies and the implications for reform. Economic Research Report No. 41, U.S. Department of Agriculture, May.
Jose, S. 2014. Adult under-nutrition in India: poverty or ethnicity? Economic and political Weekly 49(18):72–74.
Menon, P., A. Deolalikar, and A. Bhaskar. 2009. The India State hunger index: comparisons of hunger across states. Washington DC: IFPRI. Welthungerhilfe.
Mishra, P. 2013. Financial and distributional implications of the ffo security law, Economic and Political Weekly 48(39): 28–30
Nube, M. 2009. The Asian enigma: predisposition for low adult BMI among people of South Asian descent. Public Health Nutrition 12(4): 507–516.
Osmani, S., and A. Bhargava. 1998. Health and nutrition in emerging Asia. Asian Development Review 16(1): 31–71.
Panagariya, A. 2013. Does India suffer from worse child malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa? Economic and Political Weekly 48(18): 98–111.
U. Patnaik. 2004. The republic of Hunger. Social Scientist 32(9–10).
Patnaik, U. 2007. Neoliberalism and rural poverty in India. Economic and Political Weekly, July 28. 3132–3150.
Patnaik, U. 2010. On some fatal fallacies. Economic and Political Weekly 45(47): 81–85.
Rakshit, M. 2003. Some analytics of medium and long term food policy. Economic and Political Weekly, May 3: 1777–1794.
Ramachandran, 2013. Food and nutrition security: challenges in the new millennium. Indian Journal of Medical Research 138: 373–382.
Ramalingaswami, V., U. Jonsson, and J. Rohde. 1996. Commentary: The Asian Enigma: The Progress of Nations. New York: UNICEF.
Ray, R. 2007. Dietary changes, calorie intake and undernourishment: A comparative study of India and Vietnam. http://utas.edu.au/economics-finance/. Accessed 7 July 2013.
Ray, R., and G. Lancaster. 2005. On setting the poverty line based on estimated nutrient prices: Condition of socially disadvantaged groups during the reform period. Economic and Political Weekly 30(1): 46–56.
Ray, R., and K. Sinha. 2014. Rangarajan Committee Report on poverty measurement: an opportunity lost. Economic and Political Weekly 49(32): 43–48.
Sen, P. 2005. Of calories and things: reflections on nutritional norms, poverty lines and consumption behaviour in India. Economic and Political Weekly, October 22:4611–4618.
Swaminathan, M.S., and R.V. Bhavani. 2013. Food production nada availability—essential prerequisites for sustainable food security. Indian Journal of Medical Research 138: 383–391.
Trostle, R. 2008. Global agricultural supply and demand: factors contributing to the recent increase in food commodity prices. United States Department of Agriculture: A Report from the Economic Research Service.
United Nations. 2010. Millennium Development Goals. http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml. Accessed 30 August 2011.
UNICEF/WHO/World Bank. 2013. 2012 Joint Child Malnutrition estimates—Levels and Trends. www.int/nutgrowthdb/estimates2012. Accessed 23 July 2014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chatterjee, S. (2016). India’s Evolving Food and Nutrition Scenario: An Overview. In: Venkateswar, S., Bandyopadhyay, S. (eds) Globalisation and the Challenges of Development in Contemporary India. Dynamics of Asian Development. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0454-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0454-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-0453-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-0454-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)