India's hunger rate drops from 16.6% to 13.7% in 2 yrs: UN-FAO

Hunger in India has decreased from 16.6% of the population during 2020-2022 to 13.7% in 2021-2023, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) latest report titled State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI 2024). This reduction signifies that approximately 39.3 million people have escaped undernourishment between these periods, stated NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand on Tuesday.

The latest SOFI report also said the number of people experiencing hunger in India decreased from 233.9 million in 2020-2022 to 194.6 million in 2021-2023.

Chand discussed these findings during a press meet announcing the 32nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists, set to take place in Delhi from August 2. This conference, occurring after 66 years, will host over 700 delegates globally and will cover critical agricultural issues such as the increasing subsidy burden, climate change, and nutritional challenges. 

“The per capita income in real time in India is 12- 13 thousand dollars, which is targeted to increase to 18 thousand dollars by 2047. We are focused on that and working in that direction. We are now moving away from agri commodity to holistic,” Chand states.

Chand highlighted that the UN-FAO report, based on updated data from the central government, addresses the debate over whether hunger, measured by malnourishment prevalence, has increased in India post-Covid. Previously, in October, the central government criticised the UN-FAO's SOFI 2023 report, which indicated a rise in Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) from 14% in 2017-2019 to 16.6% in 2020-2022. The 2024 SOFI report, compiled by five United Nations agencies—FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO—had noted that the incidence of hunger in India increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The agriculture ministry recently provided the UN body with the latest household consumption expenditure survey for 2022-23. This update led to a revision of the hunger prevalence estimates in India, which was discussed at a G-20 meeting held on July 24 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

With approximately one in eleven people facing hunger globally in 2023, the latest SOFI report indicates the prevalence of undernourishment has remained at pre-COVID-19 levels for the third year in a row.

“Between 713 and 757 million people may have faced hunger in 2023,” the report adds.

Over 864 million people globally experienced severe food insecurity in 2023, often going an entire day or more without food. This figure is part of a broader total of approximately 2.33 billion people facing moderate to severe food insecurity, a number that has remained relatively stable since the significant increase in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the report states.

Globally, the SOFI 2024 report noted that after a sharp increase from 2019 to 2021, global hunger, as measured by PoU, has stabilised at around 9.1% in 2023, compared to 7.5% in 2019.