This is a function of both home production and imports. There is no time to relax on the food production front. The present global surplus of food grains is the result of inadequate consumption on the part of the poor, and should not be mistaken as a sign of over-production.

Lack of purchasing power deprives a person from access to food even though food is available. Inadequate livelihood opportunities in rural areas are responsible for household nutrition insecurity. For example, India today has over 30 million tonnes of wheat and rice in government godowns; yet poverty induced hunger affects over 200 million persons. It is endemic in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Ramalingaswami et al. 1997; WFP 2001). Macro-economic policies, at the national and global level, should be conducive to fostering job-led economic growth based on micro-enterprises supported by micro-credit. Where poverty is pervasive, suitable measures to provide the needed entitlement to food, should be introduced. The State of Maharashtra introduced, nearly 25 years ago, an Employment Guarantee Scheme to assist the poor to earn their daily bread during seasons when opportunities for wage employment are low.

Lack of access to clean drinking water, poor environmental hygiene and poor health infrastructure, lead to poor assimilation of the food that is consumed. Nutrition security cannot be achieved without environmental hygiene, primary health care and clean drinking water security. Culinary habits also need careful evaluation as some methods of cooking may lead to the loss of vital nutrients.

The most important among the internal threats to sustainable food security is the damage to the ecological foundations essential for sustained agricultural advance, like land, water, forests and biodiversity. Second, in the areas of farm economics, resource flow to the agriculture sector is declining and indebtedness of small and marginal farm families is rising. Input costs are increasing, while factor productivity is declining. Third, a technology fatigue has further aggravated farmers’ problems, since the smaller the farm the greater is the need for sustained marketable surplus, in order to have cash income. Linkages between the laboratory and the field have weakened and extension services have often little to extend by way of location, time and farming system specific information and advice (chapter on Wake Up Call in the NCF report).

The external threats include the unequal trade bargain inherent in the WTO agreement of 1994, the rapid expansion of proprietary science and potential adverse changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level and ultra violet ß radiation. Though it is now over ten years since the WTO regime started operating in agriculture, serious attempts are yet to be made to launch in rural areas movements for quality literacy (sanitary and phytosanitary measures and codex alimentarius standards of food safety), trade literacy (likely demand-supply and price situation) legal literacy (IPR, Farmers’ Rights) and genetic literacy (genetically modified crops). No wonder the prevailing gap between potential and actual yields even with technologies currently on the shelf is very wide (Table 1).

Table 1: Comparative Crop Productivity (Kg/hectare)

Source: Wake Up Call Chapter in NCF Report

In the area of technology, there is also need to bridge the growing digital and genetic divides. Post-harvest technology is poor and there is little value addition particularly in the case of fruits, vegetables and spices including a wife range of tubers and medicinal and aromatic plants. Sustainable intensification, ecologically, economically and nutritionally desirable diversification and value addition to the entire biomass are important for raising small and marginal farm families above subsistence level. All this will call for initiating an era of knowledge intensive agriculture. Modern information communication technologies (ICT) afford an opportunity for launching a knowledge revolution in rural India.