DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2017.v05i11.012

Pages: 1622-1634

As depicted by FAO (2002), food security is interpreted as a situation ‘that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’. Poverty is the root cause of food insecurity of a country in a normal period of time with a stable economic situation. Social security measures are can be expected to eliminate the poverty from the society through subsidies food assistance and the financial assistance to the financially excluded section of the community. It is likely to improve the food security status of the deprived people. In our study, ‘food secure households’ are households’ with access to required calorie from the consumption of cereals, pulses, vegetables and flesh food items at the household level. The required calorie obtain from the consumption must be at least equal to or greater than what is required at household level medically (Harris- Benedict, 1918). With this end in view, we have collected data from various households residing in rural and urban areas of Bankura in the district of West Bengal. Our objective in this paper is to look into the impact of different socio-economic-demographic factors along with various social security measures on food security through enhancing consumption expenditure. This empirical study shows that with the access to social security measures the households do have food security in the form of consumption expenditure in the District of Bankura of West Bengal.