Centre for Preparatory Studies, NU Astana
Azamat Rizuan
Tutor: P. Grundy
Word count: 1, 053
Centre for Preparatory Studies, NU Astana
Nowadays, the threat of hunger and food insecurity becomes one of the massive problems around the globe. This problem also has significantly affected in India, which second most populated country in the world. It has been found that nearly a quarter of the world's hungry people are Indians and according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) 230 million people in India is suffering from this difficulty (Deolalikar 2012). In addition, India ranks at 67 among 112 countries in the 2010 Global Hunger Index (AVARD 2012). Briefly, all measures point to the hard fact that hunger continues to affect adversely to a majority of the Indian population. One possible solution to this problem is promoting agricultural development by increasing investments (Acharya 2009, 17). This essay will evaluate this solution according to the criteria of effectiveness, time and cost.
India’s policy of alleviating hunger and starvation gives more significance to agriculture because Indians are predominantly rural and also their main source of income is agriculture (Ahluwalia 2012). Improving agriculture can contribute significant gains to eliminate hunger by several ways. Firstly, by increasing agricultural production, ensuring that all households can afford food at prices that they able to have. Secondly, create jobs that will generate incomes poor people to access food (DFID 2004). Acharya (2009, 4) claims that India addressed the situation of hunger across the two measures: long-term and short-term. Long-term plan included industrial development, creation of occupations, enhancing marketing, and education system and health services while short-term plan comprises interference in selective marketing and food subsidies to eliminate hunger. In addition, establishment of adequate water supplies also will help translate nutritional status into good condition (Acharya 2009, 4). Overall, agricultural improvement in India is the one of major initiative for reducing hunger and food insecurity.
Over the five past decades, the agricultural development in the India has dramatically improved. As shown in Table 1, the total amount of production of cereals rose from around 44 million tonnes in TE 1951-52 to 203 million tonnes in TE 2007-08. Throughout the period shown, there was a marked increase in the figure for wheat and rice whereas those for other cereals increased slightly by about 20 million tonnes. 
Table 1. Production of cereals in India. Source: Government of India 2007.
In addition, Praduman and Surabhi (2006, 71) argue that “…policy support, production strategies, public investment in infrastructure, research and extension for crop, livestock and fisheries…” have considerably encouraged raising the agricultural productivity and availability of food. With regard to this, there has been a significant growth in physical access of food in different parts of the country, as a consequence of many factors. First, enlargement of public distribution system that allocated cereals to poor regions of the country. Second, development of road systems, establishment of primary market yards, and magnification of storage facilities to raise physical access of residents of the rural areas to food. Similarly, economic access to staple food for both rural and urban areas also has improved during this period.
Overall, the percentage of households with food-insecure reduced from 16.2 percent in 1983 to 1.9 percent in 2004-2005 (Acharya 2009, 5-6). All these factors indicate that agricultural growth in India seems to be effective in reducing hunger and food insecurity.
Improvement in agriculture in India has focused at facing hunger, food insecurity thereafter 1947. The main aims of this all-encompassing goal initially were keeping the price of food low, later altered to macro food-security (Acharya 2009, 1). At this time, the country deals with two major nutritional problems. First, the danger of famine by causes of shortage of agriculture production and absence of appropriate food distribution services. Second, chronic and acute malnutrition because of lack of access to clean water and healthcare system (Planning Commission 2000, 2 quoted in Barik 2007, 2). Household and national food security has been focused of rural development ever since 1960s. The purpose of this strategy was to maximize the production of cereals and reach food security on three key aspects: supplying with modern technology to the farmers, distribution of new agricultural inputs, institutional credit to the rural households, providing gainful commercial opportunities for farmers (Acharya 2009, 3). India's plan in this period invested by PL 480 supported from the United States and accomplished by the effect of the Green Revolution in the 1970s. This success may be suggested that one of remarkable achievement in India's policy to reducing hunger (Ahluwalia 2012). In brief, areas of focus of improvement in agriculture have changed over the time accordingly change of their demands.
The government has taken several actions to mitigate hunger and food insecurity by increasing investments in the agricultural sector and its sustainability. Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) is a programme aims at encourage the States to raise investment in agriculture according to their State plans. Subsequently, the Government allocated RKVY with Rs 250 billion for the Eleventh Five Year Plan (Union Budget and Economic Survey 2008). The Union Budget of India also has placed a great importance on agriculture by providing more investments in agricultural extensions and agri marketing services, rising availability of agri credit to the farmers, etc. (Economic Affairs and Research Division 2013). The government has allocated US$ 4.31 billion for the Ministry of Agriculture and US$ 145.8 billion for agricultural credit under the Union Budget 2013-2014 (IBEF 2013). Moreover, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has spent US$ 319.02 million to develop Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK) during the eleventh Five Year Plan whereas allotment for KVK increased to US$ 909.18 million in the twelfth Five Year Plan (IBEF 2013). As a result of those initiatives, Indian agriculture has achieved rapid transformation over the last two decades (IBEF 2013).
The problem of hunger in India is a major threat that demands serious attention. Indians have the great ability to overcome this burning issue, by improving agricultural sectors. Summarizing all the data and information which was provided above, this solution would be making a big jump towards reducing poverty, bettering health conditions, increasing availability of food access for Indians. It might be suggested that all those factors play an important role in order to alleviate hunger. Altogether, there has been a considerable reduction in hunger and poverty after implementing this solution. However, 0.3 per cent of India's inhabitants (3.3 million) are still on the verge of the starvation (Acharya 2009, 6). So, there's still a long way to go to ending hunger in India.
Reference list:
Acharya, Shabd. 2009. " Food Security and Indian Agriculture: Policies, Production Performance and Marketing Environment." Agricultural Economics Research Review 22 (1): 1-19.
Agriculture and Natural Resources Team of the UK Department for International Development (DFID). 2004. Agriculture, hunger and food security. Accessed August 15, 2004. http://dfid-agriculture-consultation.nri.org/summaries/wp7.pdf
Ahluwalia, Montek. 2012. Reducing Poverty and Hunger in India: The Role of Agriculture. Accessed December 1, 2012. http://planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/speech/spemsa/msa046.pdf
Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development (AVARD). 2012. Hunger and malnutrition in India: status, causes and cures. Accessed December 9, 2012. http://www.angoc.org/portal/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/12/vietnam-food-and-nutrition-security-situationer/India.pdf
Barik, Dan.2007. Starvation and India’s Democracy. New York: Routledge.
Deolalikar, Anil. 2012. Green Government. Last modified July 23, 2013. http://www.ideasforindia.in/article.aspx?Article_id=8
Economic Affairs and Research Division. 2013. Union budget-2012-13. Accessed March 21, 2012. http://www.ficci.com/SEdocument/20184/Central_Budget.pdf
Government of India. 2007. Agricultural Statistics at a Glance 2007. New Delhi: Ministry of Agriculture. http://eands.dacnet.nic.in/At_Glance_2007.htm
India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF). 2013. "Agriculture Sector in India." Last modified November 8, 2013. http://www.ibef.org/industry/agriculture-india.aspx
Praduman, Kumar, and Mittal Surabhi. 2007. " Agricultural Productivity Trends in India: Sustainability Issues." Agricultural Economics Research Review 19 (Conference No.): 71-88
Union Budget and Economic Survey. 2008. Agriculture and food management: New initiatives, National Food Security Mission. Accessed August 16, 2007. http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2007-08/chapt2008/chap73.pdf