Nourishing Communities: The Intersection of Food Security, Health, and Education

Ensuring food security is a crucial aspect of human survival, but the contemporary world is marred by various crises such as international conflicts, external aggression, terrorism, war, autocracy, and pandemics. These issues plunge affected nations into states of chaos, marked by an uncertain future, poverty, unemployment, malnourishment, inflation, and instability. The impact on food security is not solely external; internal factors within a nation also contribute. The failure of administration to balance urgency and affluence proves detrimental to a nation's food security. Sri Lanka is currently grappling with food insecurity due to rapidly depleting foreign reserves, rendering the country unable to afford essential items like food, pharmaceuticals, and fuel. This dire situation leaves food either unavailable or unaffordable, particularly for the poor. Turning our attention to India, the consumer price index-based reading surged to an eight-month high of 6.07% in February. Retail inflation has exceeded the upper tolerance threshold of 6% set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI faces an ethical dilemma, torn between its accommodative stance in monetary policy over the past two years to revive the economy devastated by Covid-19, resulting in high inflation, and the need to address the immediate concern of making basic essential goods unaffordable for the poor.