123-504: The Public Distribution System ( PDS ) is a food security system that was established by the Government of India under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution to distribute food and non-food items to India's poor at subsidised rates. Major commodities distributed include staple food grains, such as wheat , rice , sugar and essential fuels like kerosene , through
246-540: A consequence of the conflicts. With the majority of them being hosted in developing nations, the number of displaced individuals between 2010 and 2018 increased by 70% between 2010 and 2018 to reach 70.8 million. Recent editions of the SOFI report ( The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World) present evidence that the decades-long decline in hunger in the world, as measured by the number of undernourished (NoU), has ended. In
369-526: A decline in coverage, the switch to a targeted PDS brought with it large-scale leakages. At the All-India level, the share of total allocated grains not reaching households increased from 24% in 1999–2000 to 39% in 2001–02 to 54% in 2004–05. The All-India figures mask considerable state-wide heterogeneity, with very low levels of leakages in states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and very high leakages in states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Rajasthan. This
492-464: A good proportion of the stock meant for the poor. Since the early 2000s, one state after another has been able to reform its PDS. There used to be lack of clarity as to which families should be included in the below the poverty line list. This resulted in the genuinely poor being excluded whilst the ineligible get several cards. After the implementation of the NFSA, the situation has improved to some extent. As
615-481: A high degree of vulnerability to hunger and famine. Chronic hunger and malnutrition in childhood can lead to stunted growth of children. Once stunting has occurred, improved nutritional intake after the age of about two years is unable to reverse the damage. Severe malnutrition in early childhood often leads to defects in cognitive development . Food security, as defined by the World Food Summit in 1996,
738-438: A household purchases food produced elsewhere. Location can affect access to food and which type of access a family will rely on. The assets of a household, including income, land, products of labor, inheritances, and gifts can determine a household's access to food. However, the ability to access sufficient food may not lead to the purchase of food over other materials and services. Demographics and education levels of members of
861-615: A level of around 9.9 percent. This is the mid-point of an estimate of 720 to 811 million people facing hunger in 2020 – as many as 161 million more than in 2019. The number had jumped by some 446 million in Africa , 57 million in Asia , and about 14 million in Latin America and the Caribbean . At the global level, the prevalence of food insecurity at a moderate or severe level, and severe level only,
984-601: A network of fair price shops (also known as ration shops) established in several states across the country. Food Corporation of India , a government-owned corporation , procures and maintains the PDS. As of June 2022, India has the largest stock of grain in the world besides China , the government spends ₹ 750 billion. Food is procured from the net food surplus states, mainly from the smaller but richer states of Haryana and Punjab , which provide 70-90% of wheat & 28-44% of rice of India's Public Distribution System (PDS), which
1107-492: A post-office. Starting around 2015–16, Aadhaar-based biometric authentication (ABBA) was made mandatory for accessing PDS rations in various states, ostensibly with the aim of reducing leakages and corruption in the PDS. This means that in order to collect their monthly grain entitlements, ration card holders must now present their fingerprints to authenticate their identity. The claim was that integrating Aadhaar would help in identifying ghosts, fakes, and duplicate beneficiaries in
1230-456: A price lower than the market price called Issue Price. Other essential commodities may also be sold. To buy items one must have a ration card. These shops are operated throughout the country by joint assistance of central and state government. The items from these shops are much cheaper but are of average quality. Ration shops are now present in most localities, villages towns and cities. India has more than 5.5 lakh (0.55 million) shops, constituting
1353-466: A randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Jharkhand by researchers at J-PAL found that at most 3% of total ration cards in the state were fake or ghosts. Similarly, in the state of Odisha, the role of Aadhaar in identifying ghosts and fakes was found to very small - only 4% of ration cards deleted were on account of Aadhaar. Another 6-state survey conducted in 2016 reports few fakes or ghosts in the PDS lists of
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#17330859655211476-703: A result of these improvements, it is estimated that in 2009–10, the PDS reduced the poverty gap index by 18-22% at the all India level. The stock assigned to a single family cannot be bought in installments. This used to be a barrier to the efficient functioning and overall success of PDS in India before PDS prices were reduced as a result of the implementation of the National Food Security Act, 2013 . Many poor families are not able to acquire ration cards either because they are seasonal migrant workers or because they live in unauthorized colonies. Lack of clarity in
1599-415: A severe reduction in the quantity of grains disbursed to beneficiaries, and the reform had to be called-off within 3 months due to large-scale opposition. While the evidence of Aadhaar helping with corruption is limited, there is credible evidence that enforcing ABBA in the PDS led to exclusion of genuine beneficiaries and increased transaction costs involved in accessing PDS grains. This was reported by both
1722-410: A sting operation on PDS named Operation Black. It showed how the distribution reaches mills instead of fair price shops. NDTV produced a show which documented how the Government of Chhattisgarh 's food department managed to fix its broken system so that the diversion of grain came down from about 50% in 2004–05 to about 10% in 2009–10. Research on the PDS suggests (as these two programmes show) that
1845-407: A subsequent 'reconciliation' reform (after ABBA was enforced for some months) in Jharkhand where the government tracked the quantities of grains sold in previous months before making new disbursements led to reduction in leakages from the government's point of view. However, this interpretation has been questioned since the reduced leakages were short-lived, came at the cost of large-scale exclusion and
1968-587: A third. The 2021 edition of the SOFI report estimated the hunger excess linked to the COVID-19 pandemic at 30 million people by the end of the decade – FAO had earlier warned that even without the pandemic, the world was off track to achieve Zero Hunger or Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals – it further found that already in the first year of the pandemic, the prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) had increased 1.5 percentage points, reaching
2091-559: Is "when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life". Food insecurity , on the other hand, as defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is a situation of "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways." At
2214-483: Is a greater barrier to achieving food security. Food access refers to the affordability and allocation of food, as well as the preferences of individuals and households. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights noted that the causes of hunger and malnutrition are often not a scarcity of food but an inability to access available food, usually due to poverty . Poverty can limit access to food, and can also increase how vulnerable an individual or household
2337-565: Is a major feedstock for the production of ammonia , via the Haber process , for use in fertilizer production. The development of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has significantly supported global population growth — it has been estimated that almost half the people on Earth are currently fed as a result of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use. Diseases affecting livestock or crops can have devastating effects on food availability especially if there are no contingency plans in place. For example, Ug99 ,
2460-516: Is a result of food insecurity. According to estimates, girls and women make up 60% of the world's chronically hungry and little progress has been made in ensuring the equal right to food for women enshrined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women . At the global level, the gender gap in the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity grew even larger in
2583-462: Is considered to exist when all the members of a family, at all times, have access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Individuals who are food-secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation . Food security includes resilience to future disruptions of food supply. Such a disruption could occur due to various risk factors such as droughts and floods , shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars. Food insecurity
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#17330859655212706-418: Is food utilization, which refers to the metabolism of food by individuals. Once the food is obtained by a household, a variety of factors affect the quantity and quality of food that reaches members of the household. To achieve food security, the food ingested must be safe and must be enough to meet the physiological requirements of each individual. Food safety affects food utilization, and can be affected by
2829-649: Is government action or inaction that determines its severity, and often even whether or not a famine will occur. The 20th century has examples of governments, such as Collectivization in the Soviet Union or the Great Leap Forward in the People's Republic of China undermining the food security of their nations. Mass starvation is frequently a weapon of war, as in the blockade of Germany in World War I and World War II ,
2952-513: Is higher among women than men, magnified in rural areas. In 2023, the Global Report on Food Crises revealed that acute hunger affected approximately 282 million people across 59 countries, an increase of 24 million from the previous year. This rise in food insecurity was primarily driven by conflicts, economic shocks, and extreme weather . Regions like the Gaza Strip and South Sudan were among
3075-508: Is not required for a country to achieve food security. Nations do not have to have the natural resources required to produce crops to achieve food security, as seen in the examples of Japan and Singapore. Because food consumers outnumber producers in every country, food must be distributed to different regions or nations. Food distribution involves the storage, processing, transport, packaging, and marketing of food. Food-chain infrastructure and storage technologies on farms can also affect
3198-400: Is of no help is stopping leakages that come from PDS dealers giving beneficiaries less than their entitlements ( quantity fraud). Moreover, there are no reliable estimates of the size of identity and quantity fraud in recent years at the All-India level. Whatever evidence is available suggests that fake and ghost ration cards are a very small problem. A large-scale survey conducted as part of
3321-507: Is ready to seamlessly replace the PDS. In the union territories of Puducherry, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the government replaced PDS with cash transfers in September 2015. A full year into the programme, roughly 20% of beneficiaries did not receive their benefits and for a majority of beneficiaries the costs (in terms of time and money) involved in going to the bank and accessing cash was higher that accessing PDS grains. Similarly, in 2018
3444-449: Is the opposite of food security: a state where there is only limited or uncertain availability of suitable food. The concept of food security has evolved over time. The four pillars of food security include availability, access, utilization, and stability. In addition, there are two more dimensions that are important: agency and sustainability . These six dimensions of food security are reinforced in conceptual and legal understandings of
3567-494: Is then redistributed to other net negative producer states which produce less than what they consume. Both small states are massive provider to the food security of India. A public distribution shop, also known as fair price shop (FPS), is a part of India's public system established by the Government of India which distributes rations at a subsidised price to the poor. Locally these are known as ration shops and public distribution shops, and chiefly sell wheat, rice and sugar at
3690-408: Is then redistributed to other net negative producer states which produce less than what they consume. Distribution of food grains to poor people throughout the country is managed by state governments. As of 2011 there were 505,879 fair price shops (FPS) across India. Under the PDS scheme, each family below the poverty line is eligible for 35 kg of rice or wheat every month, while a household above
3813-516: Is to capture some or all of the main components of food security in terms of food availability, accessibility, and utilization/adequacy. While availability (production and supply) and utilization/adequacy (nutritional status/ anthropometric measurement) are easier to estimate and therefore more popular, accessibility (the ability to acquire a sufficient quantity and quality of food) remains largely elusive. The factors influencing household food accessibility are often context-specific. FAO has developed
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3936-476: Is to food price spikes. Access depends on whether the household has enough income to purchase food at prevailing prices or has sufficient land and other resources to grow its food. Households with enough resources can overcome unstable harvests and local food shortages and maintain their access to food. There are two distinct types of access to food: direct access, in which a household produces food using human and material resources, and economic access, in which
4059-639: The Battle of the Atlantic , and the blockade of Japan during World War I and World War II and in the Hunger Plan enacted by Nazi Germany . The WHO states that three pillars that determine food security: food availability, food access, and food use and misuse. The FAO added a fourth pillar: the stability of the first three dimensions of food security over time. In 2009, the World Summit on Food Security stated that
4182-602: The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) as a universally applicable experience-based food security measurement scale derived from the scale used in the United States. Thanks to the establishment of a global reference scale and the procedure needed to calibrate measures obtained in different countries, it is possible to use the FIES to produce cross-country comparable estimates of the prevalence of food insecurity in
4305-620: The U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2009. A 2012 study in the Journal of Applied Research on Children found that rates of food security varied significantly by race, class and education. In both kindergarten and third grade, 8% of the children were classified as food insecure, but only 5% of white children were food insecure, while 12% and 15% of black and Hispanic children were food insecure, respectively. In third grade, 13% of black and 11% of Hispanic children were food insecure compared to 5% of white children. Gender inequality both leads to and
4428-632: The greatest famines in history were caused by economic policy . One economic policy example of famine was the Holodomor (Great Famine) induced by the Soviet Union 's communist economic policy resulting in 7–10 million deaths. In the late 20th century the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen observed that "there is no such thing as an apolitical food problem." While drought and other naturally occurring events may trigger famine conditions, it
4551-584: The right to food . The World Food Summit in 1996 declared that "food should not be used as an instrument for political and economic pressure." There are many causes of food insecurity. The most important ones are high food prices and disruptions in global food supplies for example due to war. There is also climate change , water scarcity , land degradation , agricultural diseases, pandemics and disease outbreaks that can all lead to food insecurity. The effects of food insecurity can include hunger and even famines . Chronic food insecurity translates into
4674-1045: The "four pillars of food security are availability, access, utilization, and stability." Two additional pillars of food security were recommended in 2020 by the High-Level Panel of Experts for the Committee on World Food Security: agency and sustainability. Food availability relates to the supply of food through production, distribution, and exchange. Food production is determined by a variety of factors including land ownership and use; soil management ; crop selection, breeding , and management; livestock breeding and management; and harvesting . Crop production can be affected by changes in rainfall and temperatures. The use of land, water, and energy to grow food often compete with other uses, which can affect food production. Land used for agriculture can be used for urbanization or lost to desertification, salinization or soil erosion due to unsustainable agricultural practices. Crop production
4797-404: The 1974 World Food Conference , the term food security was defined with an emphasis on supply; it was defined as the "availability at all times of adequate, nourishing, diverse, balanced and moderate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset the fluctuations in production and prices." Later definitions added demand and access issues to
4920-596: The 2017-18 NSS consumption expenditure survey round by the central government and the absence of any other reliable nationally representative consumption survey with relevant questions on the PDS has meant that a comprehensive evaluation of the PDS post-NFSA has not yet been possible. Nonetheless, evidence from numerous small-scale surveys points to increase in coverage, decline in exclusion errors, reduction in leakages, and improved transportation of grains. A six-state survey covering 3,800 households across Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal found that
5043-506: The 2020 report, FAO used newly accessible data from China to revise the global NoU downwards to nearly 690 million, or 8.9 percent of the world population – but having recalculated the historic hunger series accordingly, it confirmed that the number of hungry people in the world, albeit lower than previously thought, had been slowly increasing since 2014. On broader measures, the SOFI report found that far more people suffered some form of food insecurity, with 3 billion or more unable to afford even
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5166-555: The APL allocation were more than twice as high than the leakages from the BPL allocation, possibly since the APL allocations fluctuated arbitrarily and hence APL households often did not know what they were entitled to. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that the APL quota of states was an important predictor of the overall level of leakages. From 2004-05 onwards, the PDS displayed a steady revival on various dimensions. Between 2004-05 and 2011–12,
5289-494: The APL category disbanded. Entitlements of 5 kg per person per month were set for PHH households and 35 kg per household irrespective of family size for AAY households. Various states relied on simple inclusion-exclusion criteria to identify eligible households, often using the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) or other recent data they had. While the NFSA came into effect in September 2013, its roll-out at
5412-454: The All-India level, one study finds that increases in the value of PDS transfers resulting from random price shocks at the district-level leads to significant increase in caloric intake of not just cereals (distributed via the PDS) but also other food groups not catered to via the PDS as well. This suggests possible 'crowd-in' effects of the PDS on nutrition. So far, only one study analyzes the effect of
5535-474: The All-India level. The central government used the 2011 population census figures to arrive at state-wise coverage targets and allocations. However, by 2020, the NFSA covered only 59% of the projected population, resulting in an under-coverage of over 100 million people. This under-coverage is mainly because the central government froze the coverage targets based on the now-outdated 2011 census and has not updated them ever since despite sustained population growth in
5658-485: The COVID-19 crisis, as part of its relief package, in March 2020 the government announced an additional 5 kg rice or wheat per person and 1 kg pulses per family free of cost for all NFSA cardholders, over and above the usual NFSA entitlements. Under the NFSA, the central government is responsible for financing the subsidy necessary for meeting the state-wise NFSA coverage targets. The central and state governments share
5781-447: The COVID-19 pandemic risk undermining the efforts of humanitarian and food security organizations to maintain food security. The International Food Policy Research Institute expressed concerns that the increased connections between markets and the complexity of food and economic systems could cause disruptions to food systems during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically affecting the poor. The Ebola outbreak in 2014 led to increases in
5904-506: The PDS brought with it two implementational challenges: (i) estimating the number of poor to be covered by the BPL category and (ii) identifying the poor in accordance with the coverage targets determined. It was decided that the coverage of BPL households would be based on the state-wise poverty head count ratios estimated from the 1993-94 NSS consumption expenditure survey. This made the highly contentious 'poverty line' extremely salient in welfare policy. In order to identify eligible households,
6027-485: The PDS in the early post-independence years had largely disappeared. Nonetheless, the overall coverage of PDS was quite limited and patchy till this point. As per data from the National Sample Surveys (NSS), only 27% of rural and 29% of urban households purchased grains from the PDS in 1993–94. This was despite the fact that all through this while the PDS was in principle a universal scheme such that every Indian
6150-404: The PDS lists, enforce stricter identity verification, improve supply-chain management and reduce corruption in the system. These claims have been questioned and observed have argued that they over-sell the potential benefits of Aadhaar in PDS. Even in-principle, Aadhaar can only help with certain types of leakages and not others - it can help with identifying fakes and ghosts ( identity fraud) but
6273-460: The PDS revival was the significant rise in global food prices around this time which led to a rise in domestic food prices. This led to increase in the value of PDS subsidy for households which evidence suggests led to increases in PDS purchases in most states. In 2013, the Indian parliament passed the National Food Security Act (NFSA) which brought major reforms to the national food security policy and
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#17330859655216396-402: The PDS seems to have had an important effect on poverty-reduction. For instance, in 2009–10, the poverty gap ratio would have been 18%-22% higher in the absence of the PDS, with even larger gains to the tune of 40%-80% in states like Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh that had a well-functioning PDS. If the imputed value of mid-day meals were also taken into account, the effect of PDS on poverty reduction
6519-511: The PDS was "near universal" in rural areas of these states, inclusion and exclusion errors were down, and majority of households in MP, Odisha and West Bengal received their full entitlements from PDS. Even in Jharkhand, one of the states with poorest performing PDS in the early 2000s with leakages as high as 85%, multiple surveys point to clean-up of beneficiary lists, significant reduction in leakages, enhanced coverage, and significant overall improvement in
6642-804: The PDS was already performing well, consolidated their positions further. These improvements were largely the outcome of various bold initiatives by many state governments. Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh moved towards universalization of their PDS, Chhattisgarh did away with private PDS dealers and implemented a stronger monitoring system, and various other states supplemented the central subsidy to reduce issue prices and/or expand coverage. Starting 2009–10, Kerala decided to automatically include all SC, ST and fisherperson households as well as destitute persons; subsequently in 2010–11, all agricultural labourer households and traditional industrial worker households were automatically eligible for subsidized grains irrespective of APL/BPL status. Another likely factor contributing to
6765-557: The PDS was criticised for its urban bias and its failure to serve the poorer sections of the population effectively. The Targeted PDS is expensive and until the early 2000s there was a lot of corruption (i.e., people did not get all of what they were entitled to). The origins of the PDS go back to the system of food rationing introduced by the British during the Second World War. It was subsequently dismantled but had to be reintroduced at
6888-586: The PDS with direct income transfers. Further, in the wake of the structural adjustment policies that came with the 1991 economic reforms, 'targeting' (i.e. restricting welfare benefits only to the poor) gained prominence as a way of enhancing coverage among the poor while reducing fiscal expenditures. In 1997, the PDS was officially converted from a universal to a targeted scheme. Households were to be divided into two categories – below poverty line (BPL) and above poverty line (APL). BPL households were entitled to 10 kg per month, later revised to 35 kg, at 50% of
7011-501: The PDS, the following suggestions are furnished: In aggregate, only about 42% of subsidised grains issued by the central pool reach the target group, according to a Planning Commission study released in March 2008. But the United Progressive Alliance , which came to power in 2004, decided on a common minimum programme (CMP) and on the agenda was food and nutrition security. Under that the government had plans to strengthen
7134-426: The PDS, which involves distribution of in-kind food grains, is an efficient way of welfare delivery. At least since the 1990s, there have been repeated calls to replace the PDS with a cash transfer. These were at least partly motivated by the high-levels of leakages observed from the PDS. The calls for a switch from in-kind PDS to cash transfers are based on the following key arguments (among others). First, as opposed to
7257-599: The PDS. This included converting PDS from a welfare scheme to a legal entitlement, restructuring the process of procurement and distribution, expanded coverage of the PDS, reduction of issue price, shift from household to per-capita entitlements and discarding the APL-BPL method of targeting households. The All-India coverage of the PDS was set to 67% of the population, with 75% coverage in rural areas and 50% in urban areas with poorer states getting higher coverage than poorer states (see table below). In several cases, however, states felt
7380-527: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) itself suggested that in early 2018 about 12% of authentication requests for government services failed. Food surplus states are the provider of India's food security . Most states in India do not produce the surplus food and they are the net consumer of the food. There is a very small number of states that produce the surplus food which provides
7503-587: The World , or SOFI report (known as The State of Food Insecurity in the World until 2015). The SOFI report measures chronic hunger (or undernourishment) using two main indicators, the Number of undernourished (NoU) and the Prevalence of undernourishment (PoU). Beginning in the early 2010s, FAO incorporated more complex metrics into its calculations, including estimates of food losses in retail distribution for each country and
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#17330859655217626-609: The absence or scarcity of welfare provisions in the poorest of countries, is further undermining access to food. Nearly a tenth of the world population still lives on US$ 1.90 or less a day, with sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia the regions most affected. High import and export dependence ratios are meanwhile making many countries more vulnerable to external shocks. In many low-income economies, debt has swollen to levels far exceeding GDP, eroding growth prospects. Finally, there are increasing risks to institutional stability, persistent violence, and large-scale population relocation as
7749-610: The amount of food wasted in the distribution process. Poor transport infrastructure can increase the price of supplying water and fertilizer as well as the price of moving food to national and global markets. Around the world, few individuals or households are continuously self-reliant on food. This creates the need for a bartering, exchange, or cash economy to acquire food. The exchange of food requires efficient trading systems and market institutions, which can affect food security. Per capita world food supplies are more than adequate to provide food security to all, and thus food accessibility
7872-475: The body and decrease food utilization. Sanitation can also decrease the occurrence and spread of diseases that can affect food utilization. Education about nutrition and food preparation can affect food utilization and improve this pillar of food security. Food stability refers to the ability to obtain food over time. Food insecurity can be transitory, seasonal, or chronic. In transitory food insecurity, food may be unavailable during certain periods of time. At
7995-556: The central government's procurement cost. Till 2000–01, APL households were entitled to purchase 15 kg of grains at 75% of the procurement cost, after which they had to pay the full economic cost. In 2000, the Antyodaya (AAY) category was added which covered 1 crore (later 2 crore) 'poorest of the poor' households that were entitled to 25 kg (later 35 kg) of grains per month from the PDS irrespective of family size at Rs. 3/kg for rice and Rs. 2/kg for wheat. The targeted approach to
8118-416: The cheapest healthy diet. Nearly 2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 – an increase of 320 million people compared to 2019. FAO's 2021 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) further estimates that an additional 1 billion people (mostly in lower- and upper-middle-income countries) are at risk of not affording a healthy diet if a shock were to reduce their income by
8241-465: The coverage was too low. The price at which rice, wheat and millets were sold from the PDS were almost halved and fixed at Rs. 3, Rs. 2, and Rs. 1 per kg. respectively. While the NFSA did not universalize the PDS and continued with a targeted approach, it did discarded the APL-BPL method of targeting and left the selection of eligible households on state governments. Households were now to be divided into Priority households (PHH) and Antyodaya (AAY) only with
8364-437: The current PDS system which involves running the extensive procurement, storage, and distribution system, cash transfers are viewed as a more efficient way of transferring a given value of transfer with lower transaction costs. The reduced middle-men in the process make cash transfers seem less prone to corruption. Second, cash transfers render greater choice to the beneficiaries by allowing them to choose whether they want to spend
8487-474: The definition. The first World Food Summit, held in 1996, stated that food security "exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." Chronic (or permanent) food insecurity is defined as the long-term, persistent lack of adequate food. In this case, households are constantly at risk of being unable to acquire food to meet
8610-783: The distribution system. In addition, as mentioned above, some states run an 'expanded' PDS by increasing coverage beyond NFSA mandates and/or reducing the price at grains and/or providing additional food commodities like pulses and edible oil. Indeed, besides 10 major states (and excluding north-eastern states), all other states run an expanded PDS of some form. Of these, most notably Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have expanded coverage and provide NFSA equivalent entitlements or more to these added beneficiaries (the rest have expanded coverage but provide lesser entitlements against NFSA). Among these, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal finance their expanded PDS entirely out of state funds while
8733-582: The expansion of the PDS in Chhattisgarh, one study found that households increased consumption of protein and other nutrients relative to households in bordering districts of neighbouring states. Another study found moderate increases in households nutrient intake and diet quality resulting from the universalization of the PDS in the 8 districts in the Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) region in Odisha. At
8856-412: The extra income on food or some other commodity. Third, the reliance of the PDS on public procurement of grains necessitates government involvement in the agricultural markets which is frowned upon by many. Despite these potential benefits, others have opposed the move to a cash transfer in lieu of the PDS on various grounds. Most importantly, it is unclear if the banking sector, especially in rural areas,
8979-453: The food and nutritional security of their households and communities and as "managers" of the stability of food supplies in times of economic hardship. The gender gap in accessing food increased from 2018 to 2019, particularly at moderate or severe levels. Famines have been frequent in world history. Some have killed millions and substantially diminished the population of a large area. The most common causes have been drought and war, but
9102-431: The food production level, natural disasters and drought result in crop failure and decreased food availability. Civil conflicts can also decrease access to food. Instability in markets resulting in food-price spikes can cause transitory food insecurity. Other factors that can temporarily cause food insecurity are loss of employment or productivity, which can be caused by illness. Seasonal food insecurity can result from
9225-504: The food security program DS. However, finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech went contrary to the idea proposed in the CMP and proposed the idea of the food stamp scheme. He has proposed to try the scheme in few districts of India to see its viability. In a 2014 judgment, Delhi High Court has ruled that fair price shops cannot be allotted to a below poverty line card holder. The Aaj Tak news channel on 14 October 2013 performed
9348-418: The food security to all of India. Jat -farmers dominated Haryana and Punjab are the biggest provider of food security to India. Haryana and Punjab are the net surplus producer of the food, while most of the states in India are net consumer of the food. As of 2023, 70-90% of wheat & 28-44% of rice of India's total national food Public Distribution System (PDS) is provided by Haryana and Punjab, which
9471-512: The government initially used results of a survey conducted in 1992–03 to identify beneficiaries of the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP). Subsequently, the government conducted a BPL Census in 2002 which scored households on 13 different parameters covering assets, occupation, land ownership etc. and identified BPL households as those falling below a certain cut-off. While the shift from universal to targeted PDS
9594-525: The government piloted the 'DBT for Rations' (DBT = Direct Benefit Transfer) scheme in Nagri block of Jharkhand. A study of the pilot found that on an average, households only received two of the four instalments due to them since the start of pilot. Further, on an average, households said that the whole process of withdrawing money and purchasing their monthly entitlement of grains took 12 hours on an average. These results were qualitatively confirmed by another study of
9717-492: The hardest hit, highlighting the urgent need for targeted interventions to address and mitigate global hunger effectively. Food insecurity in children can lead to developmental impairments and long term consequences such as weakened physical, intellectual and emotional development. By way of comparison, in one of the largest food producing countries in the world, the United States, approximately one out of six people are "food insecure," including 17 million children, according to
9840-767: The household as well as the gender of the household head determine the preferences of the household, which influences the type of food that is purchased. A household's access to adequate nutritious food may not assure adequate food intake for all household members, as intrahousehold food allocation may not sufficiently meet the requirements of each member of the household. The USDA adds that access to food must be available in socially acceptable ways, without, for example, resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies. The monetary value of global food exports multiplied by 4.4 in nominal terms between 2000 and 2021, from US$ 380 billion in 2000 to US$ 1.66 trillion in 2021. The next pillar of food security
9963-420: The issue of quantity fraud (dealers taking cuts from households), two independent studies from the state of Jharkhand, including a RCT, found that per-se mandating ABBA in the PDS led to no effect on corruption. It is possible that the detailed transaction records that ABBA generates could help plug some leakages by improving verification of past records and supply chain management. One of these studies argues that
10086-453: The largest distribution network in the world (According to 2011 census). The public distribution system of India is not without its defects. With a coverage of around 40 million below-poverty-line families, a review discovered the following structural shortcomings and disturbances: Several schemes have augmented the number of people aided by PDS. Poor supervision of FPS and lack of accountability meant that middlemen were able to siphon off
10209-526: The last decade or so. This remains an important unresolved issue to date. In addition to the 59% population covered under the NFSA, another 11% were covered under state schemes, majority of whom (7 percentage points) receive NFSA equivalent entitlements or more. These come from states that run an "expanded PDS", increasing coverage and/or reducing issue prices beyond NFSA mandates - this includes southern states (Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana) as well as poorer states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. Including
10332-680: The long-term ability of food systems to provide food security and nutrition in a way that does not compromise the economic, social, and environmental bases that generate food security and nutrition for future generations. During 2022 and 2023 there were food crises in several regions as indicated by rising food prices . In 2022, the world experienced significant food price inflation along with major food shortages in several regions. Sub-Saharan Africa , Iran , Sri Lanka , Sudan and Iraq were most affected. Prices of wheat , maize , oil seeds , bread, pasta, flour, cooking oil, sugar, egg, chickpea and meat increased. Many factors have contributed to
10455-426: The needs of all members. Chronic and transitory food insecurity are linked since the reoccurrence of transitory food security can make households more vulnerable to chronic food insecurity. As of 2015 , the concept of food security has mostly focused on food calories rather than the quality and nutrition of food. The concept of nutrition security or nutritional security evolved as a broader concept. In 1995, it
10578-565: The ongoing world food crisis. These include supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the 2021–2023 global energy crisis , the Russian invasion of Ukraine , and floods and heatwaves during 2021 (which destroyed key American and European crops). Droughts were also a factor; in early 2022, some areas of Spain and Portugal lost 60–80% of their crops due to widespread drought. The World Food Programme has stated that pandemics such as
10701-501: The open-market price of grains, P P D S {\displaystyle P_{PDS}} the PDS price of grains, and Q P D S {\displaystyle Q_{PDS}} the total quantity purchased from the PDS. The value of the PDS transfer is given by ( P O M − P P D S ) ∗ Q P D S {\displaystyle (P_{OM}-P_{PDS})*Q_{PDS}} . Based on this framework,
10824-435: The others receive some financial assistance from the central government in the form of 'tide-over' grains. One way to think of the PDS is to think of it as an income transfer programme, with the value of the transfer being equal to the difference between open-market price and PDS price of foodgrains multiplied by the quantity of foodgrains received. Let P O M {\displaystyle P_{OM}} denote
10947-570: The pandemic's lasting effects persist, including shifts in consumer behavior and the ongoing necessity for health and safety measures. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon -fueled irrigation . Natural gas
11070-408: The performance of the PDS post implementation of the NFSA. By 2017, leakages were down to about 15% in aggregate and about 7%-10% conditional on purchasing from the PDS. The table below presents the state-wise population coverage mandated by the NFSA, population coverage in 2020 (latest available year) by NFSA ration cards (PHH + AAY) and state schemes. The NFSA mandated a population coverage of 67% at
11193-454: The pilot. The public opposition to this reform was so strong that the government was forced to roll it back shortly after. The experience of these pilot experiments suggest that there could be high transition costs associated with switching from a well-established PDS to a system of cash transfers. Further, evidence from cash transfers in NREGA suggest that, even with well established systems in place,
11316-409: The planning and structuring of social safety and security programs in India has resulted in the creation of numerous cards for the poor. Limited information about the overall use of cards has discouraged families below the poverty line from registering for new cards and increased illegal creation of cards by such families to ensure maximum benefit for the family members. To improve the current system of
11439-654: The population covered under state schemes, 950 million persons were covered by the PDS, with 899 million having NFSA equivalent entitlements or more. Besides enhanced coverage, some states also reduced the issue prices at their own costs. In Tamil Nadu, rice is distributed free of cost to all entitled cardholders and Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Odisha provide rice at a lower price than the central government's issue price. mandated by NFSA (%) Notes: " - " implies no public information available. State cards includes those with NFSA equivalent entitlements or more & those with lesser entitlements as against NFSA. In light of
11562-897: The population. Since 2015, the FIES has been adopted as the basis to compile one of the indicators included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) monitoring framework. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ( FAO ), the World Food Programme ( WFP ), the International Fund for Agricultural Development ( IFAD ), the World Health Organization ( WHO ), and the United Nations Children's Fund ( UNICEF ) collaborate every year to produce The State of Food Security and Nutrition in
11685-416: The poverty line is entitled to 15 kg of foodgrain on a monthly basis, redeemable with a card. However, there are concerns about the efficiency of the distribution process. In coverage and public expenditure , it is considered to be the most important food security network. However, the food grains supplied by the ration shops are enough to meet the consumption needs of the poor. In the 1980s and 1990s,
11808-463: The preparation, processing, and cooking of food in the community and household. Nutritional values of the household determine food choice , and whether food meets cultural preferences is important to utilization in terms of psychological and social well-being . Access to healthcare is another determinant of food utilization since the health of individuals controls how the food is metabolized. For example, intestinal parasites can take nutrients from
11931-456: The prices of staple foods in West Africa. Stringent lockdowns, travel restrictions, and disruptions to labor forces resulted in bottlenecks affecting the production and distribution of goods. Notably, the food supply chain experienced significant disruptions as the pandemic strained logistics, labor availability, and demand patterns. While progress in combating COVID-19 has provided some relief,
12054-401: The quantity of foodgrains distributed increased from about 5 million tonnes in 1960–61 to about 16 million tonnes in 1990–91. In June 1992, the 'revamped' PDS scheme was launched with the aim of covering 1750 blocks in hilly, remote, and inaccessible areas with the per kg. issue price to states set to 50 paise below the central issue price. By this time, the urban bias that was a characteristic of
12177-486: The regular pattern of growing seasons in food production. Agency refers to the capacity of individuals or groups to make their own decisions about what foods they eat, what foods they produce, how that food is produced, processed, and distributed within food systems , and their ability to engage in processes that shape food system policies and governance. This term shares similar values to those of another important concept, Food sovereignty . Sustainability refers to
12300-434: The relationship between prices and caloric intake. Another factor for preferring PDS over cash was the poor development of rural markets – for an average rural household, the nearest PDS outlet was located about 1 to 2 km closer than the closest grain market. Moreover, as of 2011, there were about half a million PDS shops covering about 75% villages, compared to only 8% of villages with a bank branch and 25% of villages with
12423-521: The responsibility of regulating the PDS. While the central government is responsible for procurement, storage, transportation, and bulk allocation of food grains, state governments hold the responsibility for distributing the same to the consumers through the established network of fair price shops (FPSs). State governments are also responsible for operational responsibilities of the NFSA including identification of eligible families in compliance with NFSA coverage targets, issue of ration cards, and monitoring of
12546-401: The roll-out of NFSA on nutritional outcomes - it finds that increase in PDS subsidy increases dietary diversity and caloric intake and also find evidence for crowd-in of non-staple food groups. Additionally, it finds that increase in PDS transfers led to higher wages and significant reduction of child stunting. An issue that has often dominated debates surrounding the PDS is the issue of whether
12669-416: The scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), and other backward class (OBC) households were excluded from the PDS. In total, only 34% of households had a BPL or AAY card. The message from these numbers was clear - the targeting process based on poverty lines and the BPL census led to severe exclusion and inclusion errors. This message was further strengthened by numerous state-specific studies. In most states,
12792-485: The share of rural households with a BPL or AAY ration card increased from 30% to 44%, coverage significantly improved among SC, ST, OBC households and many households in the poorest three consumption deciles moved from APL to BPL entitlements. The share of households actually purchasing grains from the PDS also increased significantly from 25% in 2004–05 to 50% in 2011–12. Further, PDS accounted for nearly 46% of total household rice purchases. This improvement in PDS utilization
12915-495: The shift to the targeted PDS resulted in decline in per-capita PDS purchases between 1999-2000 and 2004–05. The states worst affected by the reform were Kerala and Tamil Nadu which historically had high PDS coverage and purchases prior to 1997–98. While the issue was partly related to poor design and implementation of the 2002 BPL Census, the very idea of defining the coverage base of PDS based on poverty lines continued to be fraught with various unresolved conceptual issues. Along with
13038-471: The situation varies quite a lot across the country. Before the enactment of the National Food Security Act, 2013 , the main source of leakages from the PDS was the opaque APL Food security Food security is the state of having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food . The availability of food for people of any class and state, gender or religion is another element of food security. Similarly, household food security
13161-413: The spread of pests and diseases, such as the COVID-19 pandemic , triggering stubborn cycles of poverty and hunger. In 2019, the high cost of healthy diets together with persistently high levels of income inequality put healthy diets out of reach for around 3 billion people, especially the poor, in every region of the world. Inequality in the distributions of assets, resources and income, compounded by
13284-635: The state-level happened with a significant lag as state governments struggled to prepare new beneficiary lists, computerize their ration cards, and stream-line various other processes of distribution. The delay in the release of the SECC also contributed to this delay. The earliest states to implement the NFSA were Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan between September and December 2013, while Kerala and Tamil Nadu did so only in November 2016 owing to centre-state negotiations over coverage. The suppression of
13407-530: The stocks procured were to be used towards meeting the needs of the PDS. If procurement fell short, the government was to resort to imports and other measures such as monopoly procurement, and levy on farmers. In the subsequent decades, the coverage and reach of the PDS expanded considerably on the back of various state-led schemes and the increased need for foodgrains to implement various regional and poverty programmes. The total number of ration shops increased from around 50,000 in 1960 to around 3,50,000 by 1990-91 and
13530-707: The studies from Jharkhand mentioned above. Another study found that about 2.5 million beneficiaries in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh were denied their food rations due to ABBA. The reason for these exclusions is because ABBA rests on a fragile technological infrastructure that needs to work simultaneously in order to for authentication to work: Aadhaar 'seeding' (i.e. linking Aadhaar number with PDS ration card), point of sale (Pos) machine, internet connectivity, remote Aadhaar servers, and biometric authentication. Failure at any of these steps, for technical reasons or otherwise, leads to unsuccessful authentication. In fact, official data from
13653-419: The surveyed states. This stands in contrast to the governments claim in September 2016 that it had deleted 2.33 crore ration cards thanks to Aadhaar. This widely circulated figure was subsequently shown to be misleading since most of the these deletions had happened before Aadhaar was even introduced for various reasons like death, migration, ineligibility, and marriage in which Aadhaar had no role to play. On
13776-399: The time and costs involved in accessing cash transfers can be very high in rural areas. An important question is what do beneficiaries themselves prefer and why? Using a novel dataset collected from over 1200 households across 9 states in 2011, one study reports that on aggregate about two-thirds of beneficiaries preferred the PDS over cash transfers. Further, the proportion preferring the PDS
13899-508: The time of independence owing to severely inflationary pressures. In the initial years after independence, the system initially was largely an urban phenomenon relying largely on food imports and was used mainly as a price stabilizing tool. The setting up of the Foodgrains Prices Committee in 1964 strengthened the position of the PDS. The government committed itself to announce a minimum support price (MSP) to promote agriculture and
14022-476: The volatility in agri-food systems. Since 2014, it has also reported the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity based on the FIES. Several measurements have been developed to capture the access component of food security, with some notable examples developed by the USAID-funded Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA) project. These include: Close to 12 percent of the global population
14145-454: The year of COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 SOFI report finds that in 2019 an estimated 29.9 percent of women aged between 15 and 49 years around the world were affected by anemia . The gap in food insecurity between men and women widened from 1.7 percentage points in 2019 to 4.3 percentage points in 2021. Women play key roles in maintaining all four pillars of food security: as food producers and agricultural entrepreneurs; as decision-makers for
14268-423: Was defined as "adequate nutritional status in terms of protein, energy, vitamins, and minerals for all household members at all times." It is also related to the concepts of nutrition education and nutritional deficiency . Food security can be measured by the number of calories to digest per person per day, available on a household budget. In general, the objective of food security indicators and measurements
14391-414: Was entitled to a ration card and purchase grains from the PDS. Some observers attributed the limited access to the steadily rising prices at which grains were sold from the PDS (i.e. the issue prices) while others blamed poor administration, corruption, and lack of political will. There was evidence of corruption from the PDS as well as lack of progressiveness of benefits. This led to some calls for replacing
14514-407: Was even stronger. These large national-level effects were seen despite the fact that the PDS still performed rather poorly in some states at this time. Some of the earlier studies which analyzed the PDS during the 1990s and early 2000s found no effect of the PDS on nutritional outcomes. In contrast, recent studies, focussing on the PDS in the more recent period, do find some positive effects. Studying
14637-477: Was higher in states where the PDS worked well (measured in-terms of leakages). A major explanation that households gave was that they felt more food secure with PDS grains as opposed to cash transfers. This is borne out by other by another study - using data from successive rounds of NSS consumption surveys, the authors argue that in-kind transfers via the PDS maybe superior to cash transfers by shielding households against price shocks and inflation and thereby weakening
14760-521: Was likely due to a number of factors including lower overall coverage of the PDS, reduced consumer base of fair price shops, low levels of utilization and a shift in the PDS away from the places that it worked well. Two important dimensions of the leakage issue are worth noting. First, leakages were considerably higher for rice than wheat. Estimated leakages for rice were lower than for wheat in almost all states and per-capita wheat purchases remained low and leakages high during this period. Second, leakages from
14883-599: Was matched by a reduction in leakages between 2004–05 and 2011–12. At the All-India level, between 2004–05 and 2011–12, leakages fell from 54% to 42% based on NSS estimates and from 49% to 32% based on the India Human Development Survey (IHDS). While this improvement was modest, it showed that improvements in PDS functioning was certainly possible. The erstwhile poorly performing states of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha saw significant improvements and states like Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, where
15006-407: Was meant to enhance coverage among the poor and reduce corruption, a large body of work found that it effectively did the opposite. In 2004–05, in total only 34% of households possessed a BPL or AAY card with nearly half of households in the poorest 20% of the consumption distribution excluded. On the other hand, among the richest 40% of households, roughly 20%-25% possessed a ration card. A majority of
15129-459: Was severely food insecure in 2020, representing 928 million people -148 million more than in 2019. A variety of reasons lie behind the increase in hunger over the past few years. Slowdowns and downturns since the 2008–9 financial crisis have conspired to degrade social conditions, making undernourishment more prevalent. Structural imbalances and a lack of inclusive policies have combined with extreme weather events, altered environmental conditions, and
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