Food Security Atlas Of RURAL MAHARASHTRA - WFP Remote ...

farmers’ suicides. Revitalizing this agriculture is a necessary step to reduce food insecurity, as thatwould increase both employment of labour and wage rates. Employment-based programmes (e.g.NREGA schemes) can themselves be planned to improve infrastructure to provide needed publicgoods (roads), or quasi-public goods (irrigation) for the area.Improvement in the implementation of these government schemes depends, at one level, onimprovement in administration and governance systems. But more important is the role of the peoplewho are to benefit from the schemes, whether organized through CBOs, NGOs or traditional tribalbodies – in both demanding and monitoring implementation of the numerous schemes.Enhancing capabilities, through rights, access to resources and training, will clear the road for buildingthe capacity to aspire – the aspirations for a better life exist, but the means or capacity to realizethose aspirations are lacking.Finally, enhancing rural food security is not only a matter of increasing agricultural productivity. Inarid, semi-arid hill-forest regions, with existing technology, the agricultural potential is quite limitedand there is a narrow limit to the extent to which agricultural productivity can be increased, In orderto substantially increase per capita incomes in these rural areas, it would then be necessary to shifta large number of the workers in agriculture and thus increase per capita rural areas. Thus, improvingfood security in the semi-arid and hill-forest regions crucially depends on the extent to which ruralworkers from the problem of rural food insecurity does not lie within the rural economy alone, but onthe transformation of the structure of the whole economy. Finally, enhancing rural food security isnot only a matter of increasing agricultural productivity. In arid, semi-arid hill forest regions, with existingtechnologies, the agricultural potential is quite limited and there is a narrow limit to the extent to whichagricultural productivity can be increased. In order to substantially increase per capita incomes inthese rural areas, it would be necessary to shift a large proportion of workers out of agriculture throughgeneration of non-farm employment avenues. Thus, improving the ford security in the semi-arid andhill-forest regions crucially depends on the transformation of the structure of the economy.*****4 FOOD SECURITY ATLAS OF RURAL MAHARASHTRA