Sustainable development goals setup in 2012 have given a blueprint of actions needed to be taken for ensuring a safe and sound future for the upcoming generation. Zero hunger, as the second goal says, it targets to end hunger, ensure food security, and achieve sustainable agriculture development. And our performance in the SDG index is important on global scale as one‐sixth of world population resides in India. In the SDG India Index 2020, nutrition and gender equality have a long road to take to perform well in the score. Occurrence of pandemic like COVID‐19, where complete closure of economic activities has been witnessed, also threatens the nutrition security of the population (specially the unorganized sector). The slow economic growth rate due to COVID‐19 will lead to reduced aggregate demand, consumption expenditure, and hamper income as well as food security (IFPRI 2015). Thus, it becomes important to point out where we are at the nutritional level, how much have we have improved and what are the factors responsible and associated with the prevalence of under‐nutrition.
1.2 Growth of Agriculture in India
India is a leading producer of food grains, milk, wool, and other agricultural products. But what is the situation at present and how has India become what it is today, the journey to achieve this position was not a child's play. It began in the 1960s with the advent of the green revolution. During the independence period, India was left with own national governance and food insecurity. We were importing rice and wheat to feed the starving population. In 1966, India was the leading importer of rice and wheat. This was the time of introduction of green revolution. Introduction of dwarf wheat variety, subsidies on fertilizers, irrigation expansion, procurement at minimum support price, and chemicals for crop protection were done to increase the production (Mandal et al. 2020; Pandey et al. 2015). And the improved package of practice actually increased the production manifold. In 11 years, India’s wheat production increased 205% and rice production increased 72% (Table 1.1) bringing India among the leading exporters at the global level in 1977–1978. The productivity (kg/hectare) increased 79% in wheat between 1966–1967 and 1977–1978, which was a record increment. The increase in rice productivity (kg/hectare) was 51% between 1966 and 1977. Since then, the production of wheat has but rice has not seen a setback. Area under wheat grew at an annual rate of 1.68 while production speeded up with Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.3. Wheat has been a winner in green revolution with record increase in production and ensuring that the country is food secure. Area under rice grew at an annual rate of 0.55 while production speeded up with CAGR of 2.45.
Table 1.1 Percentage change in area production and productivity of wheat and rice in India.
Source: Indiastat.com,www.fao.org/faostat.
| Year | Area | Production | Productivity | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | Rice | Wheat | Rice | Wheat | Rice | |
| 1965–1966 | 17.7 | 13.4 | 29.6 | 8.4 | 10.3 | −4.4 |
| 1977–1978 | 70.7 | 13.6 | 205.5 | 72.2 | 79.0 | 51.7 |
| 1989–1990 | 9.5 | 4.7 | 57.0 | 39.7 | 43.3 | 33.4 |
| 2001–2002 | 12.1 | 6.5 | 46.0 | 26.9 | 30.2 | 19.1 |
| 2013–2014 | 15.7 | −1.7 | 31.7 | 14.3 | 13.9 | 16.2 |
Wheat and rice are among the staple food of the country. Apart from this the government of India procures wheat and rice at Minimum support price and distributes it to the below poverty line population at subsidized price under National food security programme (Bisht et al. 2014; Singh et al. 2013; Tomar et al. 2014; Yadav et al. 2014). It is known that wheat and rice have a lion's share in procurement under Minimum Support Price. This has led to cereal dominance in food grain production. Per capita availability of food grains has shown increase in rice, wheat, and cereals, while it has declined in the case of gram, pulses, and other cereals (Figure 1.1). This reveals that the advent of green revolution has shifted India from food insecure to food secure country. This raises up a question that whether being food secure ensures zero hunger?
1.2.1 Role of Agriculture in Nutrition
Agriculture plays a pivotal role in nutrition (Kadiyala et al. 2011). Agriculture provides the major food items required for the balanced dietary intake. As already discussed in the above section, India has made significant growth in agricultural production indicating that the availability of food is not a constraint in ensuring nutrition. But is this the only way through which agriculture ensures nutrition security? Nutrition security has three dimensions – access to adequate food, care and feeding practices, and sanitation and health (UNSCN). Here, the emphasis is on access to adequate food. The access to adequate food comes from the ability to pay for the demand of food. Source of livelihood here plays an important role in this ability to purchase apart from the subsidized food grains obtained from the NFSA. In 2020, agriculture employed around 58% of the Indian population and was the primary occupation of the country (IBEF 2021). In monetary terms, the Rs.19.48 lakh crores of Gross Value Added (GVA) was for agriculture, forestry, and fishing in 2020. Thus, a major source of income for a major section of Indian population. The year 2014 was recognized as the year of family farming emphasizing the role of agriculture in food and nutrition security. Moving to the care and feeding determinant of nutrition security it can be covered under agriculture by ensuring crop diversity and development of bio‐fortified food grains which have higher nutritional content, diversification of cropping pattern in order to ease the availability of a variety of food items at local level. And for the third determinant a model named “Farming System for Nutrition” model was developed (Das et al. 2014). This model suggested the location‐specific nutrition focused agriculture encompassing the diet need and surrounding environment development. Thus, it can be seen that the upliftment of nutritional security revolves around agriculture.
Figure 1.1 Per capita per day availability of food grains 1958–2018 in gm/day.
1.3 Dynamics of Under Nutrition in India
Hunger is measured considering children under five years who are under nourished, stunted, wasted, underweight, and under‐five mortality rate. Stunting means the percentage of children under five years who are stunted (height