Feeding the hungry

India has seen an impressive growth rate in the last decade with the GDP averaging more than 7 per cent per annum. Despite this rapid growth, India is still home to more than a quarter of the hungry people in the world. The effect of climate change on agriculture will adversely affect Indian agriculture, thereby making food availability scarce.

The changing scenario of rising food prices has raised new concerns about food security. It has been estimated that globally 130 million more people have become food insecure due to high food prices, in addition to the existing 850 million.[1] 

Feed the hungry, is an ethical imperative for all, concerning solidarity and the sharing of goods. Moreover, the elimination of world hunger has also, in the global era, become a requirement for safeguarding the peace and stability of the planet. Hunger is not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which is institutional…. It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food… as universal right of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination.

Material Food, of course, is not an end in itself. Food is consumed for nutrition. Instead of focusing attention on the commodity, one can look at the objective for which food is consumed, that is providing nutrition for the body. The purpose of nutrition itself is not just to survive, but to lead a healthy and meaningful life – to be in the state one wants to be (well-being) and to do various things one wants to do[2].

[1] United Nation, WFP, Food Security Atlas of RURAL MAHARASHTRA 2010, Introduction, Page 5.

[2] United Nation, WFP, Food Security Atlas of RURAL MAHARASHTRA 2010, Chapter 1.1.