Changing food production and quality of diet in India, 1947-98

Systematic and critical evaluation, using food balance sheets, census population data, government surveys, food composition statistics, and estimates of the population's biological requirements, shows that the realized improvements in food supplies in India of the past five decades, while beneficial, have been insufficient to meet the nutritional needs of the average person in a population that grew from less than 350 million to nearly one billion during this period. The improvements also fall significantly short of meeting the needs of the clinically malnourished. Present per capita dietary energy intakes range from as high as 95 percent to as low as 50 percent of daily requirements. Additionally, comparison of past and present diets shows that as the composition of the diet has changed with time, its nutritional quality for many has deteriorated despite an apparent increase in overall food quantity. This has come about from changes in the production system that have emphasized wheat and rice crops at the expense of more nutritional pulses and coarse grains, and from widespread poverty that leaves high-quality animal foods beyond the means of most.