Food security in the context of liberalization in India a macro analysis

After introducing liberalization under New Economic Policy in India some major changes were made in the agricultural sector such as the small and marginal farmers have been affected, due to reduction in the fertilizer, chemical subsidies and implementation of poverty alleviation program, which affected on the shift of area under food production to export oriented commercial crops. And changes were made in the area under food and non food crops, change in the land use pattern, which cause price hike in food crops. In this background this paper discusses food security in the context of pre and post liberalization. This is based on secondary data, which is obtained from Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture. Using these data the paper analyzes changing pattern of food crops and change of area from food crops to non food crops. Paired t- test is used to find out changes in the trends in the area under food grains and total production of food grains, pulses, and oilseeds during the period of pre and post liberalization periods. Conclude that after liberalization, food grain production increases at marginal rate, trends of area under non food crops has been increased. In the context of liberalization the least expansion is captivating in the agricultural sector.