Food Security and Nutrition in Rural India: Understanding State Level Heterogeneity

Date01 March 2018
Published date01 March 2018
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.18278/wfp.4.2.7
101
Food Security and Nutrition in Rural India:
Understanding State Level Heterogeneity
Andaleeb Rahman, Prabhu Pingali and Bhaskar Mittra1
A
While nutritional outcomes in India have improved, albeit slowly,
the policy framework fails to recognize the importance of food and
agricultural policies in improving nutrition. is paper provides
evidence on the sub-national variation in food security and nutri-
tional outcomes and links it to the governance structure and policy
priorities. Sub-national unit of analysis has been a common theme
in the comparative literature and we apply the same to understand
the nutrition-food-agriculture nexus within India. We nd that
the states with a better agricultural system and public provision of
health and hygiene perform much better on the nutritional out-
comes. is hearkens to the academic understanding of nutrition
as a multi-dimensional concept, which has been ignored by poli-
cymakers. We further call for more careful analysis of sub-regional
heterogeneity and the changing policy paradigms at the sub-na-
tional level to address poor nutritional outcomes in India.
Keywords: Nutrition; Food Policy; Sub-national politics; India.
Seguridad alimentaria y nutrición en India:
comprendiendo la heterogeneidad a nivel estatal
R
Si bien los resultados nutricionales en la India han mejorado, aun-
que lentamente, el marco de políticas no reconoce la importancia
de las políticas alimentarias y agrícolas para mejorar la nutrición.
Este documento proporciona evidencia de la variación subnacio-
nal en seguridad alimentaria y resultados nutricionales y lo vincula
a la estructura de gobernanza y prioridades políticas. La unidad de
análisis subnacional ha sido un tema común en la literatura com-
1 Tata Cornell Institute (TCI), Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell Uni-
versity, Ithaca, NY, USA
doi: 10.18278/wfp.4.2.7
World Food Policy • Vol. 4, No. 2 / Spring 2018
World Food Policy
102
parativa y aplicamos lo mismo para entender el nexo entre nutri-
ción, alimentación y agricultura dentro de la India. Encontramos
que los estados con un mejor sistema agrícola y con mejor provi-
sión pública de salud e higiene se desempeñan mucho mejor en los
resultados nutricionales. Esto apunta a la comprensión académica
de la nutrición como un concepto multidimensional, que ha sido
ignorado por los responsables políticos. Hacemos un llamado adi-
cional a un análisis más cuidadoso de la heterogeneidad subregio-
nal y de los paradigmas políticos cambiantes a nivel subnacional
para mejorar los malos resultados de alimentación en India.
Palabras clave: nutrición, políticas alimentarias, políticas subna-
cionales, India
印度乡村地区的粮食安全和营
养:理解州层面的异质性
摘要
当印度地区的营养状况得以缓慢提高时,政策框架却并未认
可粮食政策和农业政策在提高营养一事上的重要性。本文就
次国家在粮食安全和营养结果上的差异提出相关证据,同时
将这一差异与治理架构和政策优先事项联系在一起。次国家
分析一直是比较文献中的常见主题,因此笔者使用相同方法
来理解印度地区营养、粮食和农业之间的复杂关系。研究结
果发现,使用更佳农业体系、并拥有更好的公共卫生供给的
各州所得出的营养结果远优于其他州。这将关于营养的学术
理解作为一个多维度概念进行考量,后者被政策制定者所忽
视。笔者进一步呼吁对次区域异质性和不断变化的政策转变
进行更为详尽的分析,以应对印度的贫困营养状况。
关键词:营养,粮食政策,次国家级政治,印度
Food Security and Nutrition in Rural India:
Understanding State Level Heterogeneity
103
1. Introduction
There has been a very slow evo-
lution of Indias food policy to
tackle malnutrition in its mul-
tiple dimensions. While the policy has
gradually begun to give due consider-
ation to household level food access,
staple grain self-suciency continues
to be the primary focus. In doing so,
household nutrition security is com-
promised. Policy debates around food
and agriculture in India continue to
focus on hunger and calorie deciency,
at a time when balanced diets and bet-
ter nutrition are a paramount concern.
ere has been a rise in the incidence of
obesity which co-exists chronic micro-
nutrient deciency and high levels of
undernutrition. Triple burden of mal-
nutrition as this phenomenon is called,
poses important challenge for the food
and nutritional security in the country.
e principal instrument of In-
dia’s food policy is procurement of food
from farmers and its distribution to the
consumers. Every year, the government
of India announces a price, known as
the Minimum Support Price (MSP) at
which it agrees to procure rice, wheat
and other essential commodities from
the farmers through the parastatal
Food Corporation of India (FCI). e
procured food is distributed to the
consumers at highly subsidized prices
through the Fair Price Shops (FPS) as
a part of the Public Distribution System
(PDS). rough this, the government
aims to ensure that agricultural pro-
duction remains remunerative through
stable farm prices, while ensuring ade-
quate supplies. At the same, poor con-
sumers are shielded from the vagaries
of open market price uctuations. e
coupled twin objectives of consumer
welfare and farmer protection has led
to a signicant role of the FCI, which is
primarily responsible for the procure-
ment, storage and distribution of the
grains. e role of parastatals such as
FCI became instrumental in the 1960s
and 1970s when the India government
was committed to agricultural develop-
ment and productivity increase through
a combination of high-yielding seed
varieties, greater fertilizer usage, and
technological improvements, which are
generally known as the Green Revolu-
tion (GR). Government intervention
during that period was critical to attain
food security in India given the prob-
lems of market failure, technological
backwardness, volatile world markets,
liquidity constraints, low levels of pri-
vate investment and underdeveloped
rural institutions (Cummings, Rashid,
and Gulati 2006; Rashid, Cummings,
and Gulati 2007). Government oper-
ation of foodgrains, though has been
heavily criticized for their economic
eciency, rampant corruption and the
political benets accrued to the “farm-
er lobby”. Ganesh-Kumar, Gulati, and
Cummings, Jr. (2007) argue that with
time, the government’s foodgrains poli-
cy has “outlived its usefulness”. ey ar-
gue that for a greater role for the private
traders and market forces to replace this
in order to achieve a “higher, sustain-
able, and more-inclusive growth rate”.
e other set of criticism point
out to the major shortcomings of the
food and agricultural policy in improv-
ing nutrition. e prevalent ‘‘procure-

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