national food sercurity act:-an inadequate security

1480 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Poverty and hunger in india

India, with an estimated population of about 1.21 billion scuffles with the issues of poverty and illiteracy. But the most highlighting impediment of our nation is that of hunger. Therefore food insecurity ought to be a great issue for a country like India where an estimated 269.3 million people are poor. India is a nation which is the second largest producer of wheat and rice. But ironically still today many people are dying because of hunger. What is food security? “Food security is a situation that 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 preferences for an active and healthy life” .
The concept of food insecurity is not the recent one. Historically speaking, the famine of Bengal 1943 was an instance where many people died due to starvation and hunger. After the advent of the green revolution, the technology of high yielding variety seeds (HYV) has boosted the Indian agriculture. There is a huge disparity between the production and consumption of food grains. Therefore, the UPA government introduced the controversial food security bill in the parliament on 7 August 2013. This was done to replace the National Food Security ordinance 2013 promulgated by the president of India on 5 July 2013.
The objective of the Act is to provide subsidized food grains. It ensures nutritional security to the people. In a country where food grains rot in the godowns of Food Corporation of India, the entitlement of these grains to poor family at subsidized rate is an important step. The acts marks a paradigm shift from welfare approach to right based approach. It covers about two-third of the population where the urban population w...

... middle of paper ...

...nd black marketing.
The victims of these malpractices are the poor people. Still today there is no infrastructure and communication facility available in the many districts of India. As a result many people starve for food. There are many tribes which resort to the jungle products in order to satisfy their hunger. Since they have no income to purchase food from the market at prevailing price, they eat forest products for subsistence. Families of such tribes and poor people in different part of the country are forced to eat such non-food jungle products which are usually used to feed animals. However, government officials issued clean reports and assorted that these poor people have become victim of their tribal habit of eating jungle products. Hence, non-availability of food is not the actual cause of death. Official explanation of such common deaths are easy.

Show More
Related

  • Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved

    838 Words  | 2 Pages

    While the majority of the information provided by Patel and his subsequent opinions are rather bleak, there are a few rays of hope. He calls his readers to action and encourages them to arrange and regain control of the food system. One way to do this he argues is through the fair trade movement idea. Even with the corporations, supermarkets, and shareholders working against the interest of the common man, Patel believes that people can right this grievous wrong and fight back. But only if we are politically hungry enough.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Food Insecurity: A Modern Day Plague

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    How often does one think about when his/her next meal will be? If you are the average American, the answer will most likely be “in a couple of hours”; however, there is a good chance that you might also be one of the fifty million Americans that would most likely answer “I don’t know… whenever I can afford it, I guess.” Roughly every one in six Americans would have some sort of response like the one presented because that is how many are considered food insecure. This is obviously one of the most important social problems afflicting America in modern times, but what can be done about it? A Place at the Table displays three scenarios: Barbie, a struggling mother of two; Rosie, a fifth grader living meal

    Read More

  • Keeping our food supply safe and secure

    1196 Words  | 3 Pages

    Most people do not spend their days wondering where their next meal is going to come from, but as the economic situation gets worse and jobs get harder to find it is becoming an every occurring issue in the United States today. Not only will some of us have to worry about with what money will we buy our food, but now we will all start having to worry about where our food is coming from and is it safe for us to consume. We are moving toward a safer tomorrow every day by regulating certain parts of our food supply system. No matter how long it takes, it is clear that there is always opportunity for improvement in making our Nation healthier and safer.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of In Defense Of Food

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    As Americans influenced so much by pop culture, convenience, and the latest trends in society, we either pay too little attention to the foods we consume or obsess too much about every little thing that goes into our bodies. This often leads to our detriment as we drift farther and farther away from our cultural identities and lose pleasure in eating. In the novel, In Defense of Food, Michal Pollan criticizes this aspect of American culture, revealing fallacy after fallacy of the dietary ideas consumers, journalists, the government, and even scientists believe in and promote. The main idea is that Americans have been focusing too much energy nitpicking at an activity that is designed to come to humans as common sense, resulting in the opposite of what we desire: a growing epidemic where Americans have become “fatter, sicker, and more poorly nourished.”

    Read More

  • Effects Of Imperialism

    770 Words  | 2 Pages

    In order to gain natural resources from the colonies, the imperial powers forced the colonized people to grow certain crops that are specifically grown to be sold which is why they are named “cash” crops. These include plants like tea, indigo, cotton, coffee, jute, and other crops that are not food. However, this increased production cash crops took the place of food crops, which led to food shortages. Additionally, to increase their gains, the imperial powers forced the colonized people to sell these crops at extremely low prices. Because of this, the colonized people grew less food but did not earn enough money selling cash crops to buy the food they needed. This situation led to widespread hunger and famines, which led to many of the colonized people dying of starvation. For example, the Indian people were forced by the British to convert to growing cash crops instead of food crops. This caused increased famines in the late 1800s. (p. 358). From 1876 to 1900, there were 18 famines and an estimated 15 million deaths from starvation in India. (Historical Investigation-The Development of Nationalism in India Worksheet). In this case, one can see that producing the cash crops instead of cash crops was directly linked to food shortages throughout India as well as a loss of self-sufficiency. This shows how the wants of the imperial power

    Read More

  • Food Insecurity Essay

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    When considering the topic of poverty and hunger, many Americans look outside the borders of the United States. However, food insecurity is an issue that plagues millions of American households each year. The United States Department of Agriculture found that 14.5% of American households faced food insecurity during 2012. These households were defined as having “difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources” (Nord, Singh, Coleman-Jensen).

    Read More

  • Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Raj Patel’s novel Stuffed and Starved, Patel goes through every aspect of the food production process by taking the experiences of all the people involved in food production from around the world. Patel concludes by eventually blaming both big corporations and governments for their critical role in undermining local, cultural, and sustainable foodways and in so doing causing the key food-related problems of today such as starvation and obesity. In this book of facts and serious crime, Patel's Stuffed and Starved is a general but available analysis of global food struggles that has a goal of enlightening and motivating the general Western public that there is something critically wrong with our food system.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Stuffed And Starved

    2185 Words  | 5 Pages

    Stuffed and Starved brings to light the uneven hourglass shape that exists within our world’s food system, and describes what factors contribute to these discrepancies. It begins with the decisions farmers are forced to make on the farm, and ends with the decisions the consumers are able to make at the grocery stores. The purpose of Stuffed and Starved was to describe what factors attribute to the hourglass shape of the food system. Author Raj Patel points out who is profiting and who is suffering in this system, and gives insight as to how the system may be improved.

    Read More

  • Action Against Hunger In Feeding America

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    World hunger is one among many problems faced in this world today. About twenty-four thousand children under five die every day. Even though there is a lot of food in the world, some people in the world cannot reach these foods because they are poor. About one tenth of the world population is suffering from chronic hunger every year. Because of the hunger problem, majority of the people suffer from blindness, anemia, malnutrition related problems and other diseases because they are not getting enough

    Read More

  • Sustainability of The Global Food System

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...

    Read More

  • Problems of the Food System

    2097 Words  | 5 Pages

    And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper in quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the procedures of the instantaneous food system are left unchanged due to the obliviousness of the consumers and the dollar signs in the eyes of the government and big business. The problem begins with the mistreatment and exploitation of farmers. Farmers are essentially the backbone of the entire food system. Large-scale family farms account for 10% of all farms, but 75% of overall food production (CSS statistics).

    Read More

  • Essay On Food Insecurity

    1859 Words  | 4 Pages

    Food insecurity defined, is ‘the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food’ (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2014). This in turn leads to hunger, which can have three possible meanings; 1) ‘the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite, also the exhausted condition caused by want of food’, 2) ‘the want or scarcity of food in a country’, and 3) ‘a strong desire or craving’ (Worldhunger.org, 2014). Food insecurity also leads to malnutrition, with 870 million people in the world or one in eight, suffering from chronic undernourishment (Fao.org, 2014). From this alarmingly high figure, 852 million of these people live in developing countries, making it evident that majority of strategies used to solve this problem should be directed at them (Fao.org, 2014). The world produces enough food to feed everyone, with an estimated amount of 2,720 Kcal per person a day (Worldhunger.org, 2014). The only problem is distri...

    Read More

  • Examination of the Causes of the Food Crisis in The Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis by Paul Collier

    519 Words  | 2 Pages

    With the increases in the global population and the increase need to feed this population, comes the great debate in how governments of the developed and developing world must tackle this important issue. In his article, The Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis, Paul Collier examines the root causes of the food crisis and three ways (the slaying of giants) governments can easily come in finding a solution in the near-term, middle-term and long-term. The root causes, as outlined by Mr. Collier, are the increasing demand for food and increases in food prices. First, Collier states, “the first giant that must be slain is the middle to upper-class love affair with peasant agriculture.” In other words, increasing commercial agriculture and farming. Second, Collier states that the lifting of the genetically modified foods (GM crops) ban by Europe and Africa will allow a decrease in global food prices. Lastly, he states the United States must lift the subsidies on corn produced for biofuel and find an alternate biofuel source (like Brazilian sugar cane), thus decreasing the price on corn produced for food while increasing overall grain production.

    Read More

  • Food Security: A Global Issue

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are those that believe our planet has reached its maximum capacity to sustain humanity and we need to reduce our population to rectify it. It is also said that our planet is well capable of providing both the nutrition and caloric needs for humanity, both now and into the future as well. Regardless of where one’s opinion of the facts fall between these two arguments, global food security is not where it should be. Uneven development could be argued to be a cause of this. But it is not the only issue affecting the planet.

    Read More

  • Famine Prevention Essay

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    When people experience malnutrition over a long period of time, they adapt to their conditions in order to survive but as a consequence lose some of their political will to change such conditions. The media is also much less likely to cover protracted crises such as malnutrition so the groups that experience it lose power in the public sphere, as well. Famines, on the other hand, occur with a sudden loss of entitlements. This immediately captures the attention of the media and is likely to be heavily reported on. People who experience sudden entitlement failures feel the pain of that loss acutely and suddenly and have not adapted to living without that entitlement. People facing malnutrition, on the other hand, must adapt to such long term conditions of hunger in order to survive and therefore are less likely to fight as desperately for government protections. Because malnutrition is a long term problem, people lose the political will to change the conditions that allow it to continue and the media loses interest in the issue. Sen’s argument is not weakened because the problems of famine and malnutrition are inherently different and Sen doesn’t assert that democracy solves a protracted problem of hunger. It is also important to also note that in India, widespread corruption has impacted ration shops and other government institutions to fight hunger. Corruption

    Read More

More about national food sercurity act:-an inadequate security

Open Document