9th Class Social Science Food Security / खाद्य सुरक्षा Important Terms and Concepts - Food Security in India

FOOD SECURITY IN INDIA

IMPORTANT TERMS AND CONCEPTS

1. Food security. The 1995 World Food Summit declared 'Food security at the individual, household regional, national and global levels exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food'. It implies availability, accessibility and affordability of food to all people at all times.

2. Famine is characterized by widespread deaths due to starvation and epidemics caused by forced use of contaminated water or decaying food and loss of body resistance due to weakening from starvation.

3. Malnutrition is the state of not having enough food or not getting nutritious food.

4. Wheat Revolution was a special stamp released in July 1968 by Smt. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India to officially record the impressive achievement of the Green Revolution.

5. Buffer stock is the stock of food grains namely wheat and rice procured by the government through Food Corporation of India.

6. Food Corporation of India (FCI) was set up under the Food Corporation Act 1964, as the country's nodal organization for implementing the National Food Policy. It provides food grains at reasonable prices, particularly to vulnerable sections of the society, maintains buffer stock, and intervenes in the market for price stabilization of agricultural goods.

7. Minimum Support Price (MSP). The Food Corporation of India (FCI) purchases food grains, such as wheat and rice from the farmers in states where there is surplus production. The farmers are paid a pre-announced price for their crops. It is fixed to protect the small farmers.
8. Issue price. It is the price lower than the market price at which the government distributes food grains among the poorer strata of society.

9. Bengal famine was the most devastating famine that occurred in India in 1943, killing thirty lakh people in the province of Bengal.

10. Public Distribution System. It implies the distribution of food among the poorer sections of the society by the government through government regulated shops.

11. Fair price shops or ration shops are the outlets from where poor people can produce food items at subsidized prices.

12. It is a payment that a government makes to a producer to supplement the market price of a commodity. Subsidies can keep consumer prices low while maintaining a higher income for producers.

13. Rationing is a term given to government controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services. It restricts how much people are allowed to buy or consume at a particular time within a particular period.