Climate Change and Food Security in India

Abstract

The World Food Summit in 1996 defined food security as: “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their daily dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. “According to this definition, there are Three Main Dimensions to Food Security: food availability, access to food, and food absorption. Thus, adequate food production alone is not a sufficient condition for a country’s food security. Climate change has added to the enormity of India’s food security challenges. While the relationship between climate change and food security is complex, most studies focus on one dimension of food security, i.e., food availability. This paper provides an overview of the impact of climate change on India’s food security, keeping in mind three dimensions — availability, access, and absorption. It finds that ensuring food security in the face of climate change will be a formidable challenge and recommends, among others, the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, greater emphasis on urban food security and public health, provision of livelihood security, and long-term relief measures in the event of natural disasters. Much of the literature available is on the impact of climate change on food security, which just focused on just one dimension of food security, i.e., food production. But other impact of climate change on the other dimensions of food security like - access and utilization to food- has received little attention. This paper explores the impact of climate change on India’s food security by considering all these dimensions of food security.