This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.

This book offers insights into the issues around food security, public health, equity and global governance. With a focus on India, it highlights the complex networks of sociopolitical, economic and agricultural challenges to ensure self-sufficiency in food production. Based on field research conducted across India and an in-depth study on government agencies and multilateral fora, this book connects and juxtaposes global, national and local narratives on food security and policy. It analyses issues ranging from climate change to gaps in the nation-wide public food distribution systems. Through interdisciplinary narratives on food insecurity and poverty, the book exposes the underlying problems within policy frameworks and offers solutions for greater accessibility and distribution of food supplies while combating climate variability and agrarian distress. The volume explores global food governance norms and India’s role in further shaping them. It will be of interest to students and researchers of public policy and governance, development studies, sociology, agriculture studies, public health and nutrition and economics.

Chapter - I Introduction, Chapter - II Food Security: Inter and Intranational Perspectives, Chapter - III Concepts, Theories and Food Security Aspects, Chapter - IV Profile of the Study Area, Chapter - V Food Security among Socially Excluded Communities in Rural Tamil Nadu, Chapter - VI Summary of Major Findings and Conclusion, References The right to food and freedom from hunger re-emerged during 1990s. The historical World Food Summit was held in Rome in 1996, in which 185 countries participated and signed the ‘Rome Declaration on World Food Security’ which reaffirmed the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food. Consequently, the right to adequate food is recognized as a fundamental human right. The world communities, further pledged in 2000 to cut the number of the world’s hungry people to half between 1990 and 2015, as one of the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2008). Food security is an important means to realize the right to food. It means the assured access to adequate food to all members of the household throughout the year. The Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen (1981) has suggested a framework of food entitlement in order to understand the genesis of hunger and the access to food. According to him, own production, stored wealth, employment, kinship and government transfers are all possible sources of food entitlement. Food security as defined by Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO, 2005) “exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preference for an active and healthy life”. Household food security is the application of this concept to the family level, with individuals within the households as the focus of concern. India has been witnessing the phenomenon of erratic monsoon consistently. It has serious implications on the food sufficiency and food security of the country. Poor monsoons also affect the welfare of people in terms of availability of drinking water and employment opportunities. Studies on food security have not been carried out in Rural Tamil Nadu by academic and specialized research institutions.

Food security is one of the major components of social security. It consists of ensuring that food is available at all times, that all persons have means of and access to it, that it is nutritionally adequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety, and that it is acceptable within the given culture. There are three elements in this definition, availability, access and suitability. In recent years, nutrition has been considered as part of food security. The National Development Council (NDC) in its 53rd meeting held on May 29, 2007 adopted a resolution to launch a Food Security Mission -- comprising rice, wheat and pulses -- to increase the production of rice by 10 million tons, wheat by 8 million tons and pulses by 2 million tons by the end of the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12). Accordingly, a Centrally-sponsored scheme, viz. National Food Security Mission (NFSM) was launched from 2007-08 to operationalise the above mentioned resolution. National Food Security Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 22 December 2011. As per the provisions of the Bill, it is proposed to provide 7 kilograms of foodgrains per person per month belonging to priority households at prices not exceeding 3 per kilogram of rice, 2 per kilogram of wheat, and 1 per kilogram of coarse grains and to general households not less than 3 kilogram of foodgrains per person per month at prices not exceeding 50 percent of the minimum support price (MSP) for wheat and coarse grains and derived MSP for rice. The present volume consists of 15 research papers on the subject of food security, contributed by scholars in the field. The issues raised in different papers add constructively to the current debate on this sensitive subject of national importance.

This synthesis report is the result of close, collaborative research initiated by the Asian Development Bank in partnership with Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada; the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation; and the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. Fourteen background papers were commissioned to investigate food security issues particularly pertinent for Asia and the Pacific. The report synthesizes and collates the primary findings from these papers to articulate key policy challenges and opportunities related to food security in the region.

New evidence this year corroborates the rise in world hunger observed in this report last year, sending a warning that more action is needed if we aspire to end world hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. Updated estimates show the number of people who suffer from hunger has been growing over the past three years, returning to prevailing levels from almost a decade ago. Although progress continues to be made in reducing child stunting, over 22 percent of children under five years of age are still affected. Other forms of malnutrition are also growing: adult obesity continues to increase in countries irrespective of their income levels, and many countries are coping with multiple forms of malnutrition at the same time – overweight and obesity, as well as anaemia in women, and child stunting and wasting.