ABSTRACT
Food security has been a prominent concern of India’s policymakers for the last century. Policies and strategies were formulated to overcome problem, but with a marginal dent. Macro data paints a rosy picture of food sufficient India when we take arithmetic availability and mask the unequal access. We however, cannot confidently say that every Indian and region is food secure. This chapter attempts to unmask the masking of the ground realities based on a field study and emphasise the issue of food insecurity in the tribal dominated areas of Maharashtra. The findings reveal a higher incidence of food insecurity among the tribal as compared to that of non-tribes and hence argues that the tribes will have to be reached to that distant goal with extra efforts. It claims that the vulnerability to food insecurity of tribal communities’ is likely to be further aggravated, if they are denied access to their usual forest resources and proactive policy is not put in place. The chapter further states that the state should build the capabilities of the tribal communities to overcome food insecurity, particularly in distress situations with the help of their own initiatives.
