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This is part 5 of 6 in ‘80 Failures, Fractures and Food-Safety Episodes That the Celebration of Indian Food Must Also Own’, an analysis by Avinash Mudaliar.
The Nutrition Paradox: Hunger and Obesity Coexist
47. India’s burden of child wasting shows how far food abundance can be from good nutrition. The UN’s 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report puts wasting among children under five in India at 18.7% in its estimates for 2024, or about 2.13 crore children. Wasting measures low weight for height and includes moderate and severe cases. The report also estimates that 3.74 crore children under five, or 32.9%, were stunted, a measure of low height for age. These are two different measures of the conditions in which children are growing. Both belong alongside any account of what India has achieved in producing food.
48. India’s 2025 Global Hunger Index score was in the serious category. The 2025 Global Hunger Index gave India a score of 25.8. The 2026 edition put it at 24.1, also in the serious category. The index combines undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting and under-five mortality. Those indicators measure aspects of hunger and its consequences. They sit alongside a different set of numbers for grain output and economic size. A country’s success in feeding people has to be judged by what reaches households and how children fare as they grow.
49. For many households, the price of a healthy diet puts it out of reach. The UN’s 2025 report estimated that 40.4% of people in India could not afford a healthy diet in 2024, or about 58.65 crore people. It puts the share at 42.9% for 2023. The measure compares the estimated cost of a healthy diet with what people have available to spend on food. A household may be able to buy enough calories and still struggle to afford a variety of vegetables, fruit and protein sources. National accounts measure supply in tonnes. Households have to measure it in meals they can pay for.
50. Anaemia remains widespread among women and young children. The UN’s 2025 report estimated that about 20.3 crore Indian women aged 15–49 were anaemic in 2023, or 53.7%. The National Family Health Survey conducted in 2019–21 measured anaemia in 67.1% of children aged six to 59 months. The figures describe different populations and come from different sources. Iron deficiency is a common cause, and the World Health Organization also identifies infections, inflammation, other nutrient deficiencies, blood loss and inherited conditions. The figures describe a large public-health burden whose causes have to be understood before it can be addressed.
51. The market for ultra-processed food has grown alongside changes in weight and diet. A WHO and ICRIER study put compound annual growth in the retail sales value of the ultra-processed food categories it tracked at 13.37% from 2011 to 2021. The Economic Survey 2025–26 set the rise in sales alongside increases in the combined prevalence of overweight or obesity in National Family Health Survey rounds, including 2005–06 and 2019–21. The trends draw attention to how the food environment has changed. The contribution of different foods, activity patterns and other factors calls for evidence of its own.
52. India’s metabolic profile makes the case for looking beyond calories. The ICMR-INDIAB study, a national cross-sectional survey of adults aged 20 and older, estimated weighted prevalence of 11.4% for diabetes, 15.3% for prediabetes, 28.6% for generalised obesity and 39.5% for abdominal obesity, using its specified definitions. The 2024 dietary guidelines from ICMR’s National Institute of Nutrition also cite an estimate attributing 56.4% of India’s disease burden to unhealthy diets. The scale of the health burden is one reason food policy has to consider the composition of the diet alongside whether households have enough to eat.
53. Household spending shows where a large share of the food budget goes. In the 2023–24 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey, beverages, refreshments and processed food made up the largest combined food category, at 9.84% of total monthly per capita consumption expenditure in rural India and 11.09% in urban India. The category includes purchased cooked meals alongside beverages, refreshments and processed products. Spending in it therefore covers several ways of buying and eating food. The figures prompt a question about what households find affordable and convenient, whether they are buying a meal, a drink or something for the pantry.
54. Where protein comes from matters alongside the number of grams. A Council on Energy, Environment and Water analysis of 2023–24 household expenditure data estimated that people consumed an average of 55.6 grams of protein per day at home, with nearly half coming from cereals such as rice and wheat. This is an estimate for food consumed at home. Protein quality varies with the food, its preparation and the combinations in which it is eaten. The numbers make a case for looking at the whole plate, including what families can afford and regularly obtain from pulses, dairy, eggs, fish or other sources.
55. Childhood overweight and wasting coexist. The National Family Health Survey recorded an increase in overweight by weight for height among children under five, from 2.1% in 2015–16 to 3.4% in 2019–21. A separate projection in the World Obesity Atlas 2024 puts the number of children and adolescents aged five to 19 with high BMI, a measure covering overweight and obesity, at about 8.3 crore by 2035. The age groups and measures are different. Wasting and excess weight can coexist in a population, and each has multiple pathways involving diet, health and the conditions in which children live.
Structural and Policy Failures
56. Leakage has been a problem for one of India’s most ambitious welfare programmes. The National Food Security Act provides for coverage of up to 81.35 crore people. One widely cited estimate put public distribution leakage at 46.7% in 2011–12. A later analysis estimated 8.8% for 2023–24 and flagged limitations in the data. Such estimates compare grain drawn from the system with estimated consumption from it, and the results depend on the sources and methods used. The point of a ration entitlement is that the grain should reach the household named on the card. The size and location of any gap have to be measured carefully.
57. Public procurement helps shape the crop map. India announces minimum support prices for a range of crops. Rice and wheat dominate central-pool procurement, while pulses, oilseeds and other crops can be bought through separate channels, including the price-support scheme under PM-AASHA. A farmer planning a season responds to the likelihood of finding a buyer as much as to the announced price. In places such as Punjab, that matters for paddy cultivation and water use. Domestic yields, demand, trade policy and world prices also shape how much edible oil and how many pulses India imports.
58. Dependence on imported edible oil makes the country vulnerable to changes in global supply and prices. The US Department of Agriculture describes India as the largest global importer of vegetable oils. In the oil marketing year that ended in October 2025, industry data put edible-oil imports at about 16 million tonnes, valued at ₹1.61 lakh crore, up from ₹1.32 lakh crore in value the previous year. India grows oilseeds including mustard, groundnut and sesame, and sources imported palm oil from countries including Indonesia and Malaysia. The mix of domestic production and imports determines how a change in global prices reaches the Indian kitchen.
59. The millet revival has to reach the institutions that buy and serve grain. The UN General Assembly declared 2023 the International Year of Millets on an Indian proposal. Wheat and rice still dominate central grain distribution. Some states have nevertheless brought millets into public programmes, and the education ministry has promoted them through PM POSHAN. Household consumption research identifies several reasons millets have receded from everyday meals, including access, demand and preparation constraints. The revival depends on whether production, procurement and processing can make the grains practical to buy and cook.
60. The economics of seed saving change when farmers choose hybrids. Seed saved from a hybrid crop may produce less uniform offspring or lose some of the vigour for which the hybrid was bought. That creates a practical reason to buy fresh seed. India’s Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act protects farmers’ rights to save and reuse seed, with a restriction on selling branded seed of a protected variety. Research on Bt cotton includes early farm-level evidence of gains and later work on changing costs and yield trends. Outcomes vary with place and period. The question for farmers is who bears the risk when a crop comes with recurring input costs.
Farmer Distress as a Food-System Failure
61. Farmer distress belongs in an account of how the country is fed. Published reconstructions of National Crime Records Bureau figures put deaths by suicide among people in farming at about three lakh over 1995–2015. The categories changed over time, with cultivators and agricultural labourers reported separately in later years. Research on agrarian distress documents indebtedness and farming difficulties among the circumstances reported, while the government has noted gaps in national data on causes. The human cost of producing food has to include the insecurity borne by the people who grow it.
62. Onion volatility can squeeze growers and shoppers at different points in the season. Retail prices exceeded ₹100 a kilo in some markets in 2019. The government has repeatedly restricted exports during price spikes, including a ban in September 2020 and another beginning in December 2023. It also buys and releases onions through a buffer and has supported work on better storage. Weather, production and the ability to hold stocks all influence when the crop reaches market. A household paying a high retail price and a grower who sold earlier into a glut can experience very different sides of the same supply chain.
63. The 2023 tomato price spike showed how quickly fresh supply can tighten. In July 2023, tomatoes sold for as much as ₹250 a kilo in some retail markets after weather and supply disruptions. Central agencies bought tomatoes for subsidised sale, and in August the finance minister reported imports from Nepal. Tomatoes have a short selling window under ordinary handling, with storage life depending on variety, maturity and conditions. For households trying to hold a grocery budget together, a disruption in a few growing regions can show up in the price of a daily ingredient.
64. Vegetable price inflation has repeatedly run into double digits. The Reserve Bank of India recorded year-on-year vegetable inflation of 18.2% in September 2022 and 42.2% in October 2024. The official price release for January 2025 put it at 11.35%. The Price Stabilisation Fund, onion buffers and subsidised tomato sales are ways to respond to price spikes. The persistence of sharp swings shows the importance of storage and transport, as well as the effect of weather and uneven supply. India has learned to move grain at scale. Perishables bring a different set of problems to the task of keeping diets affordable.
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