Food and nutritional security of farm households in Meghalaya: A food basket approach using temporal and spatial analysis

The households were recommended to consume the right quantity of balanced foods, equivalent to approximately, 2400 Kcal per capita per day in the rural areas and 2100 Kcal in urban areas. However, in the last 20 years, there have been no significant changes in patterns of dietary intake in India and cereals remain the staple food providing most of the energy intake. The National Sample Survey reported that the calorie consumption at rural India and urban area was 2099 and 2058 Kcal per day per capita during 2011-12 which was concluded to be of improvement than the previous years. However, additional concern is that anthropometric indicators showing nutrition in India, for both adult and children, were among the worst in the world. The farm households of NER were found to be more food insecure in the country. In Meghalaya, the per capita per day intake of energy was the least among Indian states. The food availability in the state is mainly through three main sources for rice which was own farms, PDS and markets whereas for other food commodities it was mainly through on farm produced and markets. The maximum of the calorie intake among foods has been largely contributed by rice (71.94 %) which was the staple food in the state with an overall contribution of 1726.50 Kcal per person per day. The study concluded that the state has a gap or deficit in the calorie intake by 313.59 kcal per person per day with only 62.33% households being sufficient in the food intake.