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The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2022

GS Paper-2

Syllabus: Issues relating to poverty and hunger

 

Context:

FAO, International Fund for Agriculture Development, UNICEF, UN world food Programme and WHO have jointly released SOFI 2022.

 

What does the report say?

On Global Level:

  • Global hunger has increased: The world is moving further away from its goal of ending hunger (SDG 2: No Hunger), food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030. (over 800 million were affected by hunger in 2021)
    • Over 8% will still face hunger by 2030 even if the global economic recovery is taken into consideration.
  • The gender gap in food insecurity is rising: It has continued to rise in 2021 — 31.9 per cent of women in the world were moderately or severely food insecure, compared with 27.6 per cent of men.
  • Major reasons are Conflict, supply chain disruption, climate extremes, Disasters, growing inequalities and slow economic recovery after the pandemic.

On India:

  • India has high undernourishment (about 16% of the population), wasting (about 17%), stunting (about 31%) and low exclusive breastfeeding practice (only 58%)

Recommendations:

  • Focus on nutritious food: The report suggested repurposing food and agricultural support to target nutritious foods, to make healthy diets less costly, more affordable and equitably for all.
  • Reduce trade barriers: Governments could do more to reduce trade barriers for nutritious foods, such as fruits, vegetables and pulses.
  • Engagement: with government and civil society to remove unequal powers within agrifood systems.

 

Insta links

Food security in India

 

Practice Questions

Q. In the context of food and nutritional security of India, enhancing the ‘Seed Replacement Rates’ of various crops helps in achieving the food production targets of the future. But what is/are the constraints/ constraints in its wider/greater implementation? (UPSC 2014)

 

Q. There is no National Seeds Policy in place.

  1. There is no participation of private sector seed companies in the supply of quality seeds of vegetables and planting materials for horticultural crops.
  2. There is a demand-supply gap regarding quality seeds in the case of low-value and high-volume crops.

Select the correct answer using the code given below.

(a) 1 and 2

(b) 3 only

(c) 2 and 3

(d) None

Answer: B

There is a seed policy in 2002 and the private sector is the majority supplier of hybrid vegetable seeds.

Source: Down to Earth, FAO: SOFI 2022