Summary - Concepts - Chapter 4 Class 9 Economics - Food security in India - Economics

Summary

• Food security of a nation is ensured if all of its citizens have enough nutritious food available, all persons have the capacity to buy food of acceptable quality and there is no barrier to access to food.
  
  
• Although a large section of people suffers from food and nutrition insecurity in India, the worst affected groups are landless or land-poor households in rural areas and people employed in ill-paid occupations, and casual laborers engaged in seasonal activities in the urban areas.
  
  
• To ensure the availability of food to all sections of society the Indian government carefully designed a food security system, which is composed of two components:
  
  (a) buffer stock and
  
  (b) public distribution system.
  
  
• In addition to PDS, various poverty alleviation programs were also started which comprised a component of food security.
  
  
• Some of these programs are:
  
  
  1. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)
     
     
  2. Food-for-Work (FFW)
     
     
  3. Mid-Day Meals
     
     
  4. Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) etc.
     
     
• In addition to the role of the government in ensuring food security, there are various cooperatives and NGOs also working intensively towards this direction.