Understanding Food and Nutritional Security Status Through a Regional Perspective

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Authors

Md Ismail
Department of Geography, Dewan Abdul Gani College, Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal, India

Keywords:

Food, Nutrition, Security , Food Safety, Food Requirements, Population

Synopsis

Food is the basic need and everyone has birth right but everywhere people are facing food problems. Worldwide people are not getting basic food to live active and healthy life. According to WHO report (2020) more than 690 million people are food insecure in the world and Asia, Africa and Latin America are called the storehouse of food insecure population. Worldwide various organizations, agency and each countries government were taking initiative to reduce to poverty level as well as provide minimum food but due to lack of infrastructure, management, lack of funds, government corruption and various associated factors are vital caused to reduce poverty very slowly. The developing countries are facing more problems where nearly 90% under nourished people are living. World produced sufficient amount of food but everyone could not get availability, accessibility and stability. When worldwide billions of tons food is wasted by people, government and so one, at the same time millions of people do not get minimum food for feeding. Mainly unequal distribution and lack of purchasing are other reasons for food insecurity. Five years after worldwide targets to end poverty but still 8.9% of the world population are food insecure. WHO said that 57percent population in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford a healthy diet and two billion population worldwide did not have access to sufficient amount, safe, nutritious food in 2019.According to WHO, currently 21.3% of children under 5years of age were stunted, 6.9percent wasted and 5.6 percent overweight. India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan Nepal etc. are countries where regional inequality and unequal distribution of food are the major challenges and government still fails to reduce poverty satisfactorily. So large percentages of people are living here under below poverty level and most of the households are maintaining caloric requirement from staple food. In India, its 27% population are living below the poverty level and in terms of caloric intake and healthy food intakes very low percentage of households are food secure. The study area is very backward region in India where almost every year flood occurs and washes away crops, food storage, collapses houses and properties. According to government estimates, more than 50percent population are still living under the below poverty level and this district has the habitants of minority Muslim, Santhal tribes, Scheduled caste and Scheduled tribes’ populations. Socio-economically these sections of populations are backward all over India and here also same situation prevails. Malda district is predominantly agriculture based where maximum households depend on crops field and migratory works. The main aims of this study is to show the food security status on various dimensions, area and various communities are considered for determinants. Because food security status also varies from community to community due to their food habits as well as socio-economic conditions. The study will be very useful to those researchers who will work in the fields of food insecurity, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and related aspects and this study gives very clear explanation on the basis of various dimensions.

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Published

3 August 2026
Copyright (c) 2026 Md Ismail

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978-93-7185-866-3

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978-93-7185-868-7

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Md Ismail. (2026). Understanding Food and Nutritional Security Status Through a Regional Perspective. Deep Science Publishing. https://doi.org/10.70593/978-93-7185-866-3
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