The right to food is a non-negotiable fundamental human right and it is the primary responsibility of a State to ensure it for all. The State has to make efforts to improve food production, regulate price and also to develop mechanism for its equitable distribution among all sections of people. Especially, the State has to make efforts to improve access of poor to sufficient and quality food by ensuring employment, standard income and an inclusive public food distribution system. The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) of 2014 by The Economist ranked India 69 out of 109 countries of the world. The GFSI covers the issues of affordability, availability and quality across a set of 109 countries. It is revealed that the countries ranked from one to ten in the list are USA, Norway, France, Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, Belgium and New Zealand those have been implementing food safety net programme for a long time for poor households and food is also affordable for all.
For example, education and feeding programme for the poor in Europe have been continuing since nineteenth century. Norway has school breakfast programme since 1897. These countries are not only industrially developed but also have achieved high social and human development. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the World Bank suggest that food safety net has positive impact over growth. The world food summit held in Rome made a resolution to reduce the number of food insecure people by 2015 with food aid by leading industrialized countries, mostly G8 of the world. The Global Hunger Index 2014 by IFPRI ranked India at 63 out of 76 countries. The average per capita food consumption of India is much lower than global average and it is further lower for poor States and marginalized social groups in remote, inaccessible and backward areas.
The Government of poor States such as Odisha with large presence of poor marginalised social groups has a major role to ensure food security. Historically, Odisha has been struggling with the challenge of food insecurity since the days of famine in 1866. The free food distribution programme was introduced for the poor by the then British Government to tackle the famine of those days. Odisha has been known as one of the poorest States of India for its continued huge poverty, chronic backwardness and distress labour migration. It is reported that in few parts of the State poor people eat leaves, roots of trees in distress and dying a premature death. There have been reports of hunger death, malnutrition and extreme poverty in rural areas of the State in spite of organised efforts by the State and other stakeholders in many ways to meet the challenges.
The economy of Odisha is currently passing through a transition which is impacting over food security of the poor. The ongoing economic trend shows a process of industrialization through FDI with capital intensive models that are taking over the traditional sources of food of the poor communities, without offering an improved and viable alternative source of food security. Rather the poor are pushed to more vulnerable situation than before. The traditional access of the poor to food from natural sources such as land, forest, sea, river and other water bodies is getting restricted due to a number of reasons that includes use of land for non food producing activities, privatization of common resources, pollution, environmental and ecological changes. The emerging industrial hubs in the State are filled with inflow of relatively more skilled labourers from outside the State.
This process has created a challenging and competitive environment that deprived the poor locals of employment in industries. It has been observed that the outside employees have a sizeable presence in the industrial and mining areas while the labour migration from the State is increasing. For example Similiguda, Rourkela, Jharasuguda, Angul, Joda, Badabil, Paradip, Rourkela, Kalinganagar, Gopalpur have a sizeable presence of people outside Odisha engaged in business, trade and employed in the local mines and industries. Though the people in these areas have faced huge displacement and loss of livelihood but the share of local people of different social groups in employment by industries has been a matter of concern and remains unaddressed. As food security is closely linked to employment, the State Government has to ensure employment opportunity for the people of the State from different social groups. The State Government has to make plans to make people employable through skill development training and protection of locals in employment policy.
The employment opportunities in informal sector in rural areas are seasonal and the wage rate is very low to manage a family. Most of the poor people engaged in informal sector have food insecurity. In spite of increase in food production the access of the poor has not increased due to restricted access to food markets because of unemployment, low wage and low income. The control of Government over food market has been minimal and limited to a few items only. The small producers in the State, mostly the sharecroppers, small and marginal farmers, agricultural workers, milk producing farmers, forest produce collectors and fisher folk are struggling hard to make a living out of their production which is always a peril with disaster and calamities. They sell their produce at low price in distress to meet other expenses and to make further investment to continue the production. Food storage is one of the important concerns of small producers in rural areas due to lack of proper storage facility in the village.
The seasonal nature of production pushed the small producers for distress sell in the absence of proper storage facilities. Storage facility is required to maintain local food availability for households and communities by developing small producer cooperatives that can take care of production and storage of its members. Every village should have food storage infrastructure and the Government should directly purchase from the small producers to meet the local food need under different Government food security programmes. It has been argued by food rights groups that the Government has to continue food security programme for the poor till they will have a standard income with dignified employment. The ongoing food security programme should be universal to all poor in spite of their identities. The quality of food should meet the minimum calories need of children, women, elder, people with disability and working population. Considering the situation in Odisha, the State should have universal PDS along with subsidized food distribution in each block level especially in remote and backward blocks with more number of BPl population and large presence of marginalized social groups.
The ICDS centers and mid day meal (MDM) in schools should qualitatively improved and make discrimination free dignified access of all sections of people without any social barrier. The girl children, women, especially pregnant women must be fed with quality food to ensure child and mother care to counter higher infant mortality rate, low wet baby birth and higher mother mortality rate etc. The basic food need such as rice, wheat, dal, salt, sugar, potato, onion, oil and milk should be provided under universal public distribution system in each village. There should be free kitchen for poor elderly people in the village. It is unfortunate that the children, women and elderly people in poor families are suffering a lot while the earning members of the family are migrating in search of livelihood. These vulnerable people in family remain unattended and are forced to live in a sub-human condition. The State should implement food security laws and international standards of food security and ensure a well build food security programme covering all the poor of different socially groups. The spending should be ensured out of State investment and under the administrative control of the Government. Food security programme should not be directly managed by private organisations.
(The writer is a researcher and rights activist who can be mailed at (manasbbsr15@gmail.com)