Wisdom Crux

Enforcing the Right to Food in India

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[Volume 2, Issue 7] – July, 2017

Author – Kartik Sabharwal, B. Com LLB(Hons.), University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun.

Co-Author – Harshika Kapoor, B.Com LL.B.(Hons.), University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun.

ABSTRACT

According to the Directive Principles of State Policies, Indian Constitution refers to Right to Food. Therefore, there is an obligation for the Indian Government to fulfil the Right to Food of the people. According to the UN CESCR “The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement”. Right to Food is an overall part of achieving the goal of Right to Development.

However, majority of the Indian farmers lack the basic necessities, such as access to fertile land, water, credit, knowledge, and extension services. Farmers plays a crucial role in sustainable food and nutrition security through local production of nutritious food.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Right to Food in the Indian context inclusive of the Farmer’s viewpoint in terms of availability, accessibility, adequacy and sustainability. The objective of this paper is to provide critical analysis on the potential role of farmers in sustainable food and enhancing nutrition agriculture. Thus, Food law should also include duties to enhance capacities of households to grow and buy food. There is a strong opinion in India that a food security law is incomplete if it does not contain guarantees for farmers to sustainably grow food.

 Specifically, the paper addresses the following questions:

  • What are the definitions, contents and obligations of right to food?
  • How far has India progressed in fulfilling Right to Food?
  • What are the programmes and policies India is following in achieving Right to Food?
  • What is farmers view point in achieving of Right to Food?

Our research is based on doctrinal method where most of research is done through journals, books, reports of NGO’s and other secondary sources.

Key Words: Right to Food, Nutrition, Farmer’s Rights.

  1. INTRODUCTION

Right to food is part of an overall goal of achieving the right to development. The adoption by the United Nations in 1986 of the Declaration on the Right to Development was the culmination of a long process of international deliberation on human rights which were seen from the very beginning as an integrated whole of all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.[1]

The evolution of the right to food is derived from the larger human right to an adequate standard of living contained in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 25 (1) of UDHR asserts that, ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services …’ The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) developed these concepts more fully, stressing ‘the right of everyone to … adequate food’ and specifying ‘the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger’. The Declaration says “The Right to Development is an inalienable human right by which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in and contribute to and enjoy economic, social, cultural, and political development in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized”. The rights construct approach forces extra requirements considering the advancement procedure, such as maintaining transparency, accountability, equity and non-discrimination in every one of the projects. The people must have risen to chance of access to the assets for advancement and get reasonable dispersion of the advantages of improvement. Although all rights are important, right to food plays a pivotal role in the rights based approach to development.

Over the previous decade, a series of events in India have brought the subject of food security into sharp core focus. Immense starvation influenced areas versus surplus production and stocks of grains, the effect of globalization and World Trade Organization laws on agriculture and farmers, the media’s spotlight on starvation deaths and, finally, the Supreme Court of India’s strong reaction to the plight of the hungry—all make a case for recognizing the right to food.

To have the capacity to enjoy the right to food fully, individuals require access to healthcare and education, regard for their social values, the right to access and possess property and the right to organize themselves economically and politically. Without adequate food, individuals can’t lead sound dynamic and healthy lives. They are not employable, cannot care for their children, and their children cannot learn to read and write. Hence the right to food cuts over the whole range of human right. Its fulfilment is essential in the fight against poverty, and it is at the heart of Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) mandate to ensure a world free from hunger.

The objective of this paper is to examine right to food in the Indian context while keeping in mind the farmer’s perspective. We analyse the right to food in terms of availability, accessibility, adequacy and sustainability. These will be inspected as far as value and justiciability. The issue of right to food is approached from the farmer’s rights perspective.

Specifically, the paper addresses the following questions:

  • What are the definitions, contents and obligations of right to food? (Section 2)
  • How far has India progressed in fulfilling Right to Food? (Section 3)
  • What are the programmes and policies India is following in achieving right to food? (section 4)
  • What is farmer’s view point in achieving of Right to Food? (section 5)
  1. DEFINITION, CONTENTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF RIGHT TO FOOD

To analyse right to food it is important to be clear about the definition, contents and obligations. This section covers these aspects.

2.1. Definition

The evolution of the human right to food derives from the larger human right to an adequate standard of living given in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 1948. Article 25 (1) of the UDHR asserts that ‘everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including food, clothing, and housing.’.

The Preamble to the Constitution of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) 1965, declared that ‘ensuring humanity’s freedom from hunger’ is one of its basic purposes.

The right to food, and the measures that must be taken, are laid out quite clearly in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, social and cultural rights.

It also called upon UN commissioner for Human Rights ‘to better define the rights related to food in Article 11 of the Covenant and to propose ways to realize these rights’.

The operational concept of right to food as used by FAO is that of food security which says ‘food security exists when all people, at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

2.2. The Content of Right to Food

The core content of the right to food is availability and accessibility. The availability also includes adequacy and acceptability.

2.2.1 Availability

The notion of availability is as follows:

(a) Feeding oneself directly from the productive land or other natural resources

(b)  a well-functioning processing and distribution system that can move food from the site of production to where it is needed in accordance with demand. 

2.2.2. Accessibility

The idea of accessibility consolidates both physical and economic accessibility economic accessibility suggests that the individual or household financial cost associated with the acquisition of food for an adequate diet should not be so high as to compromise on other essential needs. As the assets, available to an individual or household are restricted, an increase in the cost of acquisition of food for an adequate diet could lead to a cutting back on other items of essential expenditure. However, socially vulnerable groups such as landless persons and other impoverished segments of the population may require consideration through unique projects to encourage financial availability.

2.3. Obligations of the State

The obligation of the State, means that State parties should not do activities or take measure that would hinder the access to adequate food. In other words, States must not interfere with individual’s livelihoods.

The obligation to provide means that States must provide the right directly whenever an individual or group is unable, for uncontrollable reasons, to enjoy the right to adequate food with the means at their disposal.

Violation of right to food-this refers to violations of the right to food, which occur when the state fails to guarantee the satisfaction of, at the least, the minimum essential level required to be free from hunger. Moreover, if a State claims it is not able to provide its obligation for reasons beyond its control (e.g. resource constraints), it must demonstrate to CESCR that ‘it has done everything in its power to ensure access to food, including appealing for support from the international community’.

  1. PROGRESS ON RIGHT TO FOOD

As mentioned before, the content of right to food refers to availability, accessibility, adequacy and sustainability. We shall understand the progress in the indicators relating to the contents of right to food in India. Availability, Accessibility and sustainability are not separate phenomena they overlap. Food production is connected to livelihood access, food access and food consumption. Livelihood access in turn influences the demand for food and better prices and incentives for production. Better livelihood access also leads to better education, better living standards, better sanitation, and better knowledge of nutrition, better absorption and better health. For achieving accessibility, it is also essential that the low-income group have sufficient means to purchase food.

Nutrition

There are two possible ways to examine the adequacy of food and nutrition and to detect the presence of inadequacy intake among personals and groups These are: Nutritional Intake Assessment and Nutritional Status Assessment.

Measures of nutritional intake estimate the amount of food a person is eating and can be used to assess the adequacy of the quantity of dietary energy (and protein) supply. In simple terms, one can categorize people as being well nourished or undernourished based on whether their intake of food matches their food energy needs or nutrient requirements.

The nutritional status of an individual or a representative sample of individuals within a population can be assessed by measuring anthropometric, biochemical or physiological (functional) characteristics to determine whether the individual is well nourished or under-nourished.

Thus, one must go for an assessment of adequacy from both these angles to substantiate whether the food that is available in adequate quantity is also nutritionally adequate or not.

Hunger

India has gained noteworthy ground in decreasing the issue of hunger. Estimates of hunger (two square meals a day) based on self-perception from NSS data show that less than 10 per cent of people are suffering from hunger. However, in poorer states like Bihar and Orissa the per cent of people who are suffering from hunger is much higher. One of the major achievements of India in terms of food is that it averted famines since independence. The last one was the Bengal Famine of 1943. But, chronic poverty is still high in the country. This is because lack of economic access (purchasing power) to food.

Access to PDS

The public distribution system (PDS) is one of the tools to help the poor in accessing limited quantities of food at subsidized rates. National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in its 55th round in 1999-2000 collected information on purchases of rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene made in fair price shops. These data have been analysed to examine the utilization of PDS. Per the 1999-2000 data, the PDS is accessible (Percentage of households purchases in Fair Price Shops) to about 30 percent of Indian rural households for rice and only 17 percent for wheat (Table 14). The corresponding figures for states show large variations – from 75 percent for Tamil Nadu to 17 percent in West Bengal (barring other Wheat eating States) in case of rice and 34 percent in Gujarat to 0.21 percent in Punjab (barring Rice eating states) in case of wheat.  Access to PDS in poorer states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh is low.

  1. PROGRAMMES AND POLICIES INDIA IS FOLLOWING IN ACHIEVING RIGHT TO FOOD
    a. The general population dissemination framework (PDS)[2] is one of the frameworks for enhancing nourishment security at the family unit level. PDS is a sustenance endowment program unequivocally focused on towards poor people and records for about portion of the aggregate spending on hostile to neediness programs by the focal government. PDS guarantees the accessibility of basic products like rice, wheat, sugar, palatable oils and lamp fuel to shoppers through a system of outlets, reasonable value adjustment, and as an option channel to give exchange. PDS is compelling in exchanging food grains from surplus territories to a couple grain-shortfall areas. Renamed the ‘focused on open appropriation framework’; or TPDS, the program has been fortified and progressed. A nourishment stamp plot has additionally been presented on a pilot premise in chose areas in a couple states viable starting 2004/5.

b. Annapoorna Yojana[3] is a program that is connected to the focused on PDS. It gives ten kilograms (kg) of sustenance every month for nothing out of pocket to destitute natives living alone. Affirmed amid the 1992/2000 spending plans, it is presently being operationalized, and focuses on the individuals who don’t live with their youngsters in a similar town. The Ministry of Rural Development of the legislature of India is accused of its execution.

c. Antyodaya Anna Yojana- This program was presented in mid-2001. It is tended to the poorest of poor people, as recognized by gram sabhas (town board gatherings) and gram panchayats (town chambers). Antyodaya family units are given an extraordinary proportion card which qualifies the family for 35 kg of grain for each month at exceedingly sponsored costs (Rs 2/kg for wheat and Rs 3/kg for rice). A noteworthy constraint of this plan is its confined scope, as it covers just under 5 for each penny of the populace.

d. Mid-day suppers conspire (MDMS)– Under the late morning dinners plot, all youngsters in government and government-helped schools are given a free, hot cooked late morning supper for no less than 200 days for every year. Focal government is giving cash to the development of kitchen sheds and for the cooking. This plan is a noteworthy help for poor youngsters and a support to them to go to class. According to a Supreme Court arrange, SC/ST individuals are to be given inclination as cooks/aides. In the 2004/5 spending plan, the portion for the MDMS[4] was Rs 1,675 crore and was expanded to Rs 3,010 crore in the 2005/6 spending plan.

5.FARMER’S VIEW POINT IN ACHIEVING OF RIGHT TO FOOD

India chose to restrict its food security law to only state duties to provision food, and left out concerns such as farmers’ rights, livelihoods, water, and sanitation (although it listed some of these in an annexure that is not legally binding).[5]

Another question that arises is whether a law assuring food security should be restricted to the duties of the state to provision food (in either cash or kind) as social protection, or should also cover duties to protect a household’s capacities to grow or buy sufficient food. An additional question relates to the fact that nutrition security involves more than consuming adequate food. It requires also the absorption of this food, which in turn requires inter alia clean water, sanitation, and health care. Should a law on food security then also contain guarantees for these necessary conditions for nutrition security

There is a strong body of civic opinion in India that a food security law is incomplete if it does not contain guarantees for farmers to sustainably grow food. Since the 1991 economic reforms, farmers have experienced a decline in farm income, consumption, employment, and credit availability.[6]

 Farmers suffer from displacement, landlessness, chronic hunger, and unemployment or declining wages in comparison with other sectors of the economy; most of India’s 190 million hungry people[7] live in rural areas and depend on some form of agricultural work to survive. Additionally, farmer suicides and the below subsistence food expenditures of farm households illustrate the depth of the crisis in agriculture.[8]

Therefore, it is argued (especially by the Right to Food Campaign and the Left parties) that legislating food provisioning without protecting sustainable food production is like wiping the floor while leaving the tap running.

 For food security, farmers require equitable access to land, water, and affordable inputs. They also require land reforms; a minimum support price guarantee; income protection; access to cheap credit, crop insurance and technical assistance; increased productivity of small farms and dryland farms; efforts to prevent the diversion of land and water from food production; enhanced public investments in agriculture, research and development; extension; micro- and minor irrigation; and rural power supply. Many commentators also regard protections for food sovereignty to be crucial, such as farmers’ control over inputs like seeds, as well as promoting decentralized food production, procurement and distribution systems.

6.CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Article 21 [9]of the Indian Constitution gives the principal appropriate to the assurance of life and individual freedom. This article orders the state to guarantee the privilege to life of subjects. This incorporates the privilege to live with nobility with no less than two not too bad dinners a day. Article 47 of Directive Principle of State Policy determines that ‘the obligation of the state to raise the level of sustenance and the way of life and to enhance general wellbeing’. The requests of the Apex Court of India translate the privilege to sustenance as a component of the privilege to life, which is a crucial all right the Indian Constitution. The state, in any case, appears to have overlooked these standards.

Intervention by the Supreme Court- Because of forceful crusades and open intrigue case (PIL), during the last 4-5 years the Supreme Court of India has checked the fight for the privilege to sustenance. The issue is acute to the point that the Supreme Court was compelled to intercede vigorously on state and focal governments on a few events. Today, the bearings issued by the Supreme Court are one of the real parts for executing the privilege to sustenance. To sum things up, the mediations of the court had three noteworthy effects:

  • It changed over the advantages of the eight nourishment related plans into lawful qualifications;
  • It guided all state governments to start giving a cooked late morning dinner to all kids in government-helped schools; and
  • It guided the state and local governments to embrace measures to guarantee open mindfulness and straightforwardness of these plans/programs.

References 

[1] See Sengupta (2000, 2000a, 2002), Marks (2000) and Franciscans International (19992002). The right to development, as adopted by the Declaration and reaffirmed in the Vienna Declaration of 1993, reunified all these rights into an integrated and interdependent set of human rights, identified with a process of development.  Osmani (2000) deals with a set of issues related to the human rights to food, health and education. He elucidates the philosophical underpinning of these rights, by using the conceptual framework of capabilities developed by Amartya Sen. In this context, the notion of ‘capability rights as goal rights’ is elaborated and contrasted with a popular version of libertarian rights. In this context see Sen (1982 and 1985).

[2] The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is an independent, non-profit organization that funds and shares research that compares the effectiveness of various choices that patients, families, healthcare

providers, and another stakeholders encounter. It aims to increase the quantity, quality, and timeliness of useful,

trustworthy information available to support health decisions; speed the implementation and use of PCOR evidence; and influence research funded by others to be more patient-centered.

[3] The Annapurna Scheme has been launched with effect from 1st April, 2000. It aims at providing food

security to meet the requirement of those senior citizens who, though eligible, have remained uncovered

under the National Old Age Pension Scheme(NOAPS)

[4] Mid-Day Meal. It is imperative to provide nutritious food to the school children uninterruptedly. The cooked noon meal should contain the prescribed calorie and protein requirement. All the stakeholders have important roles to play in providing wholesome meals without any disruption.

[5] Government of India. 2013. The National Food Security Act, 2013, p. 17 (available at http://indiacode.nic.in/acts-in-pdf/202013.pdf).

[6]  See for instance: Pal, P. & Ghosh, J. 2007. Inequality in India: a survey of recent trends. DESA Working Paper No. 45. It shows through NSSO data that “per capita food-grain consumption declined from 476 grams per day in 1990 to 418 grams per day in 2001, while aggregate calorific consumption per capita declined from just over 2 200 calories per day in 1987–1988 to around 2 150 in 1999–2000.”

[7] Updated estimations can be found at the Web page of The State of Food Insecurity in the World (available at http://www.fao.org/ hunger/en).

[8] The NSSO (59th Round) report indicated that the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure of farm households was Rs 503 in 2003. See: Bello, W. 2007. Why Small Farmers Deserve Protection from Free Trade, Global Asia, April 2007. Bello discusses how WTO trade liberalization, characterized by the removal of tariffs and quantitative restrictions in India, has resulted in what Utsa Patnaik calls

 “a collapse of rural livelihoods and incomes.” Per reports of the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of farmer suicides in India crossed 270 thousand in the period 1995–2011.

[9] Maneka Gandhi vs Union of India on 25 January, 1978