Food Security in India: Issues and Concerns

Perspectives in Global Development: Fall 2023 Seminar Series

Abstract

The paradox of food security in the Indian subcontinent is of massive expansion in the production of food grain resulting in large food stocks of almost 60 million tonnes, on the one hand, and of mass chronic hunger, on the other hand. More than 70 per cent of the Indian population cannot afford what the FAO terms a healthy diet. This talk gives an overview of policies of food security in India, from the 1960s to the present, covering policies on the production and consumption front. It then discusses some present concerns and challenges to ensuring food security in rural India.

About the speaker

Madhura Swaminathan is Professor of Economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bengaluru, with a doctorate in Economics from the University of Oxford. She has worked on issues of food security, agriculture, poverty and inequality for over 30 years, has guided over 20 doctoral students, and authored over ten books. Her most recent edited volume is titled Women and Work in Rural India (Tulika Books 2020). She was a member of the Government of India’s High Level Panel on Long Term Food Security, and of the Committee of Development Policy of the United Nations, New York.

Perspectives in Global Development

The Perspectives in Global Development seminars are held Wednesdays from 12:20-1:20 p.m. eastern time during the semester. The series is presented in a hybrid format with some speakers on campus and others appearing via Zoom. All seminars are shown in Emerson Hall 135. Students, faculty and the general public are welcome to attend. The series is co-sponsored by the Department of Global Development, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and the School of Integrative Plant Science as part of courses GDEV 4961, AEM 4961, NTRES 4961, GDEV 6960, AEM 6960, and NTRES 6960.