india goes hungry

says the latest report from the international food policy research institute.
key summary points:

1. India’s GHI 2008 score is 23.7, which ranks it 66th out of 88 countries. This indicates continued poor performance at reducing hunger in India.
2. ISHI scores are closely aligned with poverty, but there is little association with statelevel economic growth. High levels of hunger are seen even in states that are performing well from an economic perspective

for the first time, the individual states are ranked on several parameters.
infochangeindia has a complete analysis.
the effect, as we see in Table 1 in the infochangeindia analysis, is a decrease in per capita availability of food grain in most states.
as one could simply formulate, there is a decrease in the land under cropping and a simultaneous upsurge in the population. this is offset to some extent by increasing productivity.

while improving productivity is certainly possible, it is highly unlikely that it is sufficient to beat the crisis. michael pollan even berates the argument of improving productivity through GMO seeds.
he articulates the need to change our eating habits. he says "It's the outsourcing of our food preparation I think that has gotten us in a lot of trouble, and the corporations we allow to cook for us don't cook very well."