The food system needs to become a public health priority. Developing policies and regulatory frameworks should be an integral part of the country. This will be ensured by establishing and implementing effective food safety systems.

A safe food system can ensure that the food supply is of high nutritional quality by enforcing regulations that promote nutrition, nutritious food, and accurate labeling, and consumers should be well informed to make the right choices for safe food handling. When consumers have confidence and appropriate knowledge of the food they consume, they are more likely to choose a balanced meal.

Food security at the household level – growing your own food, and savings

Food saved for difficult times is extremely important to ensure that the family has nutritious food to eat at all times. The past two decades have also seen a major shift in the understanding of the policy responses required to improve nutrition and its correlation with the empowerment of women. It is absolutely clear that an enabling environment plays a crucial role and that policies to change the aspects of the food environment are required, such as (revival of locally grown foods, forbidden food, food preservation, encouraging savings to purchase food during required times) more education and information on nutrition is absolutely essential. Then access to provision and action access to entitlements, access to food security schemes like ICDS, PDS, school, and Mid-Day meals significantly support families during deficiency. Hence, it’s important equally to access entitlements and support interventions to the communities to avail it. The process of asserting their rights has been a struggle and continues to be so though, women are more up to pick up the struggle. So, in essence, access to these entitlements will mean nutritious food for their children, save them from serious diseases, and given the remoteness and poverty levels, pregnant women can be taken care of in the villages.

Read the full article about food security by Meera Satpathy at Global Washington.