Food Insecurity in Rural India

The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) and the World Food Programme (WFP)initiated in the year 2000 an exercise to map the food security situation in rural and urban India. The factors governing the sustainability of food security were also studied. As a result of this work, the following three Atlases were prepared and distributed widely: Food Insecurity Atlas of Rural India (April 2001) Food Insecurity Atlas of Urban India (October 2002) Atlas of the Sustainability of Food Security in India (February 2004)The present Report is an update of the Rural Food Insecurity Atlas of 2001. While releasing the Food Insecurity Atlas of Rural India, Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister of India, made the following observations:"[T]he sacred mission of a 'Hunger Free India'needs the cooperative efforts of the Central and State Governments, local self-government bodies, non-governmental organisations, international agencies,and - above all, our citizens. We can indeed banish hunger from our country in a short time. Let us resolve today to make this mission substantially successful by 2007, which will mark the sixtieth anniversaryof our independence".