Food Insecurity among Dalit Communities in India: Searching the Root Causes and Dimensions

Food security can be defined as a situation wherein all households have physical and economic access to adequate food for all members, and where households are not at risk of deprivation of this basic access. Explicitly, this access is inseparably linked to the larger question of the survival of humanity. 

Implicitly, the different elements that influence food security can be classified into three broad dimensions- food availability which depend on food production and imports, secondly food access which depend on purchasing power, and thirdly, food absorption, is a functions of safe drinking water, environmental hygiene, primary health care and education. However, we must point out thatwater security is also an inseparable component of food security. Hence, the question of availability, stability and access is also equally applicable to the question of water security as a part of larger food security.