Contribution of Indian Agriculture to Nutritional Security: Trend and Patterns

This paper has examined the consumption and production patterns of proteins and calories in India over the past 25 years (1991–92 to 2014–15). The study has revealed that consumption and production trends have been diversified away from cereals towards fruits and vegetables as also towards foods of animal origin. Diversification in consumption and production of proteins and calories has relatively been more pronounced in the recent period. A higher proportion of protein and calorie supply was coming from nontraditional food commodities, especially of animal origin. Soybean's contribution to protein supply has increased significantly over the years even surpassing that of pulses. Protein and calorie production from livestock products has grown faster vis-à-vis food crops. While the pulse production per capita per day has declined drastically during the past decades to 40 grams during TE 2014–15 that has protein content of 8.02 grams, the protein produced from various foods increased to 93 grams. The instability index as measured in terms of de-trended CV has been found lower for food products of animal origin compared to food crops. Instability index has been found lower than the growth rates for livestock based foods. It is observed that growth rates are higher and instability lower during the recent periods. Overall, production patterns seems to match the consumption patterns.