There is consensus that the incidence of malnutrition has seen little improvement over the last 10 years. Almost half of all young children are underweight, many of them in the more serious categories of wasting and stunting. Rural households consume less food than in the 1950s. The government's safety net for feeding, known as the Public Food Distribution System (PDS), reaches less than 100 million people and is impaired by corruption at district level.

Regulations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which force Indian farmers to compete on an unlevel playing field have been a key factor in the crisis. Agricultural imports have increased four times since the WTO came into effect in 1995 and at least 4 million farmers have been rendered jobless. Apart from the scarcity of affordable food, a tragic human consequence has been the suicide of over 100,000 farmers in the last decade, most of them faced with crippling debts for expensive seeds and chemicals. It can be no surprise that India's insistence on special protection for its farmers was a vital factor in the collapse of the Doha round of WTO negotiations.

Internal factors have also contributed to food insecurity in India. Lack of investment in the rural economy is reflected in the 220,000 villages which lack electricity. Irrigation infrastructure has not been maintained and poor controls over industrialisation have also contributed to the collapse of groundwater levels and the loss of cultivable land. With yields of wheat falling and rice production static, there is bound to be alarm at the Ministry of Rural Development’s decision to invest $375 million in the production of diesel from the untested biofuel crop jatropha. Although this wild plant can be grown on arid wasteland, it grows even better on conventional farm land exposing the risk that commercial forces will overwhelm any regulation.

With almost 60% of the workforce dependent on farm livelihoods, the government has responded with a range of measures intended to boost the rural economy. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) guarantees 100 days of paid employment to one person from every household to work on public infrastructure projects. Initially confined to selected states, NREGA is now being extended to the entire country. The 2008 budget also announced a farm loan waiver scheme which aims to write off the debts of 40 million farmers. Critics have suggested that the vast expenditure involved in these schemes should be more explicitly targeted to rural development needs such as soil regeneration, irrigation and diversifying livelihoods.

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