Food and Nutritional Security among Schedule Caste (SC) Women in Lakhimpur District of Assam: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Food is the basic necessity of life. Food self-sufficiency and nutrition security are the essential components of food security. Therefore, food security should ensure both adequate food availability and desired nutrition. It is a major problem of the state like Assam, because of shortage of food grain production, poverty and lack of nutritional knowledge. In this study, an attempt has been made to assess the extent of food security among the SC Women of Lakhimpur district of Assam. For finding out the extent of food security, Per Capita per day Calorie Intake (PCCI) and Food Insecurity Gap (FIG) have been employed. For final assessment of the extent of food security among SC women, calculated calorie intake of sample SC women  have been compared with 2230 kilocalories,which  is recommendedby theIndian Council of Medical Research (ICMR, 2010) for an adult women doing moderate activity. For obtaining final sample, multistage mix-sampling technique has been used. It has been found that out of 41 sample women only 44 per cent has been found as food secure and another 56 percent is found as food insecure.