Covid-19 and Food Security Policies

Food Security can be defined as the means that all people, regardless of any bias, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to adequate, safe, and nutritious food that meets their preferences and dietary needs for a healthy and active life.

The time of total lockdown saw a lot of problems with food in terms of supply, accessibility, and availability. The food security of the country took a serious hit due to the lockdown, risking not just health but also livelihoods. This could mean a rise in malnutrition and overall threat to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The global food prices rose close to 20 percent in the past one year. The world bank group closely worked with governments and international partners to monitor the domestic food and agricultural supply chains, and track how the loss of employment and income impacted people's ability to buy food and ensure that food systems continued to function.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a path changer in every manner. The country underwent unimaginable actions and took quick measures to battle the pandemic situation- from the amendment of policies to construction of committees- and a lot more.

To remedy the situation, some of the major national and state food policies were used as means to fight the crisis.

The government made direct benefit transfers such as cash transfers under PM Kissan, ensured a release of free and subsidized food grains under PMGKY to about 800 million people to ensure food for all. The administration in Kerala provided free ration for a month for families below the poverty line. They also distributed food kits with 17 items listed as essentials, which was worth a total of one thousand rupees. These kits were provided to every household irrespective of income status. This was distributed through the ration shops under the Public Distribution System. Another measure to protect the food security in the state was to set up community kitchens across the state.

Apart from this, the central government had promulgated three ordinances deregulating the norms regarding agricultural marketing, encouraging contract and corporate farming, and allowing bulk storage of essential commodities by private warehouses without any limit.

These ordinances were unfavorable for the agricultural farmers, because they supported the complete deregulation of farming, and in the peasant farming system of India, such policies can get very exploitative towards the farmers, by freeing all checks from the privately owned businesses.