Towards a human dignity based approach to food security: lessons from China and India

• Author: Nandini Ramanujam, Stephanie Chow
• Pages: 243-265

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 11 JUNE 2016 NO. 2

DOI 10.3868/s050-005-016-0015-3

FOCUS

THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF RULE OF LAW

TOWARDS A HUMAN DIGNITY BASED APPROACH TO FOOD SECURITY: LESSONS

FROM CHINA AND INDIA

Nandini Ramanujam*, Stephanie Chow∗∗

Abstract Despite almost halving the proportion of the world’s undernourished over

the past two and half decades, the number of undernourished people in the world

remains staggeringly high. Efforts to address the global state of food insecurity must

target China and India, which are home to the world’s highest and second highest

number of undernourished people. This article analyzes the comparative experiences of

tackling food security in China and India and adopts an inter-disciplinary approach,

which melds legal, economic, and human perspectives to food security. Both China and

India have made concerted efforts to improve food security of vulnerable populations in

the past three decades. These efforts have historically focused on actively promoting

grain production, which has been largely successful in achieving grain self-sufficiency

and securing adequate availability of food for their populations. However, the

contemporary challenges to food security are now increasingly driven by unsustainable

dietary patterns and are exacerbated by growing populations, increasing wealth, and the

globalization of food supply chains. As a result, the cause of food insecurity is no longer

fundamentally about food supply, but rather about the extent to which marginalized

populations are empowered with the rights, freedoms, and capabilities that enable them

to attain healthy and productive lives. China and India apply markedly different

approaches to address the issue of people’s access to food. In India, the right to food

movement has gained momentum through the work of civil society actors and there is

now a legal right to food. In contrast, in China the right to food is neither stipulated in

Chinese law nor referenced to in the official policy rhetoric as the country seeks to

ensure access to food by focusing on poverty alleviation more generally through an

income transfer program and a non-food based, social safety net to help the poor. At the

same time, the Chinese population’s high educational level provides enormous potential

∗ Nandini Ramanujam, D.Phil in Economics, University of Oxford; Associate Professor (Professional), at

Faculty of Law, McGill University; Executive Director and Director of Programs, McGill Centre for Human

Rights and Legal Pluralism, Montreal, Canada. Contact: nandini.ramanujam@mcgill.ca

∗∗ Stephanie Chow, LL.M in Comparative Law at McGill University; Research Assistant at the Centre of

Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Contact: Stephanie.chow@

mail.mcgill.ca

244 FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA [Vol. 11: 243

for effective interventions and education on nutrition and health. A comparison of the

approaches to food security in China and India ultimately reminds us that efforts to

tackle food insecurity must center on human dignity, which requires more wide-ranging

investment in enhancing people’s capabilities, combined with effective enforcement of

the right to food.

Keywords food security, human dignity, human capabilities, right to food

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 244

I. WHY COMPARE CHINA AND INDIA?......................................................................... 246

II. THE MOVE TOWARDS A HUMAN DIGNITY APPROACH TO FOOD SECURITY............ 249

III. APPROACH TO FOOD SECURITY IN CHINA AND INDIA .......................................... 252

A. Securing Food Availability ...........................................................................253

1. India..........................................................................................................253

2. China ........................................................................................................254

B. Diverging Approaches to Ensuring Access to Food....................................... 256

1. India..........................................................................................................256

2. China ........................................................................................................258

C. Increasing Focus on Food Use .....................................................................259

1. India..........................................................................................................259

2. China ........................................................................................................262

CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................ 263

INTRODUCTION

2015 was a milestone for global efforts to reduce food insecurity. It was the target

year set by the World Food Summit’s Rome Declaration to reduce the number of

undernourished people around the world to half of the 1996 levels.1 It also marked the

end date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), whose first goal is to eradicate

extreme poverty and hunger. In particular, target 1c of the MDGs aims to halve the

proportion of people who suffer from hunger between 1990 and 2015.2

The 2015 target set by the World Food Summit (WFS) has been missed “by a large

margin.”3 The 1990–1992 estimates put over one billion people across the world as

undernourished. Reaching the 2015 target would have required reducing the number of

undernourished people to 515 million in 2015. However, current projections put the

1 World Food Summit 1996, Rome Declaration on World Food Security, available at http://www.fao.org/

docrep/003/w3613e/w3613e00.HTM (last visited Apr. 29, 2016).

2 See United Nations Millennium Development Goals, available at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

poverty.shtml (last visited Apr. 29, 2016).

3 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agricultural

Development & World Food Programme, The State of Food Insecurity in the World: Meeting the 2015

International Hunger Targets: Taking Stock of Uneven Progress, (2015).