Food is the highest priority among the basic necessities of life and it is the most strategic commodity of the economy. The issue of food security is thus always a major concern for any civilization. Food security encompasses a wide range of interrelated environmental, economic, social and political factors (Gina et. al 2006). According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food security exists when all people at all times have physical or economical access to sufficient, safe as well as nutritious food to meet their dietary requirements and food preferences for an active and healthy life. To this finish, all four of its components must be adequate. These components are: availability, stability, accessibility and utilization. A food system consists of dynamic interactions among production, storage and processing, distribution, exchange, preparation and consumption. Food security is the outcome of food system performance at global, national and local levels. It is often directly or indirectly dependent on agricultural and forest ecosystem services, e.g. soil and water conservation, and watershed management, combating land degradation, protection of coastal areas and mangroves, and biodiversity conservation.
Around the world South Asian countries are prone to food insecurity as the region is characterized by high density of population, transient and permanent food insecurity, and high dependency on agriculture to maintain their livelihood. South Asia has 22 percent of world’s population (about 1.4 billion) about half of whom are lying below the food based poverty line and million others are threatened by natural disasters, caused by environmental degradation such as the devastating floods, cyclones, river bank erosion, draught and in general by climate change that the world is experiencing now. Unlike many other countries of the world a single foodgrain (rice) dominates South Asian food consumption. According to FAO Balance Sheet (2005), on an average, rice accounts for 50% of calories consumed in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal. Therefore increasing foodgrain production and achieving food security to all is one of the major goals of these countries.
Climate change and climate variability are affecting all three aspects of food security-foodgrain availability, access to foodgrain and nutrition utilization. The situation becomes widespread and more acute in the South Asia. That is food security becoming next to a stake in the agrarian economies of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal. Besides food security climate change exacerbates existing development challenges, further exposing the vulnerability of the poor, and pushing those living on the margins closer to the edge (Sierra, K. 2010). This also gives rise to many social and economic problems, particularly adversely affecting the livelihood strategies of the vulnerable people. According to IPCC the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration as millions are displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and severe drought (IPCC 1990).
The present development trends of the world are impinging on the food security of the poor people in the underdeveloped countries of Africa and South Asia. To achieve food security is thus a daunting challenge for this region. Climate variability and change are affecting all different aspects of the food security. However, most of the previous studies on this region focused on the supply side of the food security. The objective of the proposed study is to do comprehensive study considering both the demand and supply side issues of food security in South Asian region. The proposed study will address climate change from a wide range of perspectives, which not only will consider its impact on food security but also how vulnerable people will be adaptive to the climate variability.
