Quick Revision Notes: Class 9 Social Science

Chapter: Food Security in India

Definition: Food security means availability, accessibility, and affordability of food to all people at all times.
Core Dimensions (The Three Pillars):
1. Availability of food: Food production within the country, food imports, and previous years' stock stored in government granaries.
2. Accessibility: Food is within reach of every person.
3. Affordability: An individual has enough money to buy sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs.

To ensure food and nutritional security during times of natural calamities or disasters (e.g., droughts, floods, earthquakes, famines, or pandemics).
To eliminate widespread poverty, hunger, and starvation.

In Rural Areas: Landless people, traditional artisans, petty self-employed workers, and casual laborers.
In Urban Areas: Beggars, casual laborers employed in ill-paid occupations, and seasonal workers.
Social Groups at Risk: Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and some sections of the Backward Classes (BCs).
Vulnerable Demographics: Pregnant and nursing mothers, and children under the age of 5 years.

Hunger is not just an indicator of poverty; it brings about poverty. It has two main dimensions:

Chronic Hunger: Consistently inadequate diet in terms of quantity and/or quality due to very low income.
Seasonal Hunger: Related to cycles of food-growing and harvesting (mostly seen in rural agricultural activities).

Launched: In the early 1950s/1960s.
Impact: India achieved self-sufficiency in food grains (specifically Wheat and Rice) despite severe droughts.
Key Components: High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and better irrigation facilities.

The Government of India has ensured food security through two main pillars:

Definition: It is the stock of food grains (mainly wheat and rice) procured and maintained by the government through the Food Corporation of India (FCI).
Minimum Support Price (MSP): The price at which FCI purchases crops from farmers before the sowing season to provide them incentives.
Issue Price: The price at which food grains are distributed to the poorer section of society at a price lower than the market price (also known as the Fair Price).

Food procured by the FCI is distributed through government-regulated ration shops (also called Fair Price Shops) to the poor.
Ration Cards (राशन कार्ड):
1. Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY): For the poorest of the poor.
2. BPL (Below Poverty Line) Cards: For families living below the poverty line.
3. APL (Above Poverty Line) Cards: For families living above the poverty line.

PDS (Public Distribution System): Long-running food distribution network.
Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS): Experimented with in 1975 for child and maternal nutrition.
Food for Work (FFW): Wage employment program linked to food security.
National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013: Provides for food and nutritional security life at affordable prices to 75% of the rural population and 50% of the urban population.

Cooperatives play an active role, especially in the southern and western parts of India:

Amul (Gujarat): White Revolution in milk and milk products.
Mother Dairy (Delhi): Supplying milk and vegetables at controlled rates.
Academy of Development Science (ADS) in Maharashtra: Facilitates a network of grain banks among NGOs.