Magnitude of Food Insecurity in Tribal Areas and Food Security Measures Extended By Government And Its Impact

Abstract

The present study "Magnitude of Food Insecurity in Tribal Areas of Orissa and the Food Security Measures Extended by Government and its Impact" is an endeavor to assess the extent of food insecurity, factors responsible for food insecurity, impact of government measures to combat food insecurity and suggest remedial measures to overcome the problems towards bringing food security. The study follows a livelihood-based approach to undertake the vulnerability of the people to food security. The broad objectives of the study are (i) to assess the extent of food insecurity in the tribal area, (ii) to identify the reasons of food insecurity and its related causative factors, (iii) to measure the community approach to combat food insecurity without Government intervention and to examine the correlation between livelihoods based approach and food security, (iv) to asses the role and activities of women in family food security, (v) to measure the magnitude of availability, access, utilization and stability on food security measures taken up by the Government as well as NGOs and (vi) to find out the difficulties of implementing food security schemes among the Tribals and to suggest corrective measures so as to ensure food security through different programmes among tribals. Towards fulfilling the objectives, accordingly the study was designed and appropriate methodology was adopted. The study area like blocks and districts were selected having concentration of tribal population with higher proportion of BPL families and priority for KBK districts. In this manner the selected blocks and districts are Kashipur block from Rayada district, Udala block from Mayurbhanj district, Lanjigarh block from Kalahandi district and Khariar block from Nuapada district. The requisite quantitative aw well as qualitative data from different stake holders such as tribal households under BPL category, opinion makers like local PRI members, traditional villagte heads, members from SHGs, representatives from local NGOs/VOs, school teachers, officials connected with the programme, etc. and by organizing Focus Group Discussions among the above stakeholders were collected through separate sets of questionnaires, duly analyzed and presented in report form. The report comprises of six chapters.