Food Security and Nutritional Availability of Farmers in Tribal Areas of India: The Complexity and Challenges

Aims: The major objectives of the study are to estimate and elucidate health, nutrition and calorie Intake of farmer in their perspectives of relation and interaction, the general status of the operating factors of the research locale in terms of nutrition and food accessed by the target respondents, the variables as well as factors, in the forms of dependent and interdependent variables and interaction amongst and between them.

Study Design: The locale was selected by purposive as well as simple random sampling techniques and the respondents following cultivation had been interacted and were selected by the simple random sampling method.

Place of Study: Villages Sidpur and Gobindapur of Purulia-1 block of Purulia district in West Bengal were purposively selected for the study.

Methodology: In this study 60 respondents following cultivation have been interacted and are selected by the simple random sampling method. A preliminary interview schedule has been administered to understand the knowledge, perception and attitude of the people towards nutritional availability concept, communication and extension system, challenges faced due to food insecurity. The collected data had been put into multivariate analysis. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences V20.0 (SPSS) of IBM was used for correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, step-down regression analysis and path analysis.

Results: Independent variables family size (x3), family income (x5), family expenditure (x6) and health hazards (x7) have been found to exert strong and determining contribution to estimate dependent variable self-consumption of rice production (y) and the set of economic and ecological variables as selected for the study.

Conclusion: The present study has envisaged the nutritional availability and intake of calories and it should be conceived as one of the most important predicted factor and to be estimated through a set of predictor factors like family capability, home food access, personal resources etc. A nutrition professional advisory should be made to advice individuals, families, and groups on how to improve diet, lifestyle, and attitude to promote optimal health. These problems can be overcome by effective planning and allocating more funds.