Food security and land grabbing

Abstract

In the 1960s and early 1970s, many countries in South and Southeast Asia were the focus of world attention due to their frequent occurrence of food shortages. These shortages were met by large amounts of food imported through food aid or similar programmes. Several pessimistic predictions were made about the future of food security in Asia on the basis of the severity of these shortages. For example, the Asian Development Bank’s 1977 survey predicted increasing food grains defi cits unless remedial measures were undertaken in most of these countries, and by the late 1970s, India was categorized as a lost cause, since there was no hope for it to increase its food supplies.