Food and Nutrition Security of Selected Farm Households of Sonipat and Karnal Districts in North India

ABSTRACT

Food is essential to be alive, no one can pretend when a natural disaster will sweep out all crop area, which perhaps by flood, drought and other irregularities in weather leads to loss of production, therefore, food is necessary to feed the population during these conditions. The present study was conducted in two districts of Rohtak division and data were collected in September, 2016–April, 2017. Two districts viz. Sonipat and Karnal were selected randomly and by selecting one block from each selected district and two villages from each of the selected blocks at random. From the selected four villages a sample of 300 respondents, i.e. 75 small and marginal farm families from each village was drawn at random to assess the status of food and nutrition security of small and marginal farm families. From 300 (150, i.e. small-87, marginal-63 from Sonipat district and 150, i.e. small-116, marginal-34 from Karnal district) were selected randomly. Results of the study revealed that 69.7per cent of farm families had food mainly from their own farm production, majority (67.0%) of farm families never faced any food scarcity. Regarding nutrition security, cereals and milk and milk products consumed on daily basis in both the districts and majority (81.3%) of children and more than half (56.0%) of women had normal body mass index.

KEYWORDS:

• Food security
• nutrition security
• farm families
• BMI.

Recommendations

• Majority of farm families had enough quantity of food but not quality. The nutritional adequacy in terms of diet diversity was medium. Therefore, awareness need to create by giving advertisements during popular television serials, news channels and on FM radio regarding nutrients and how to eat balanced and diverse diet so that farm families can select and eat nutritious food.

• The findings revealed that about one-tenth children and one-fourth women were underweight. Therefore, efforts need to be strengthened for improving the health status of women and children.

Small farmers: Small farmer means a farmer cultivating (as owner or tenant or sharecropper) agricultural land of more than 1 hectare and up to 2 hectares (5 acres).

Marginal farmers: Marginal farmer means a farmer cultivating (as owner or tenant or sharecropper) agricultural land up to 1 hectare (2.5 acres).