The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the global economy, where India is the most affected economy. The crisis has an insignificant impact on the 2nd Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to get rid of desire by 2030. The most deprived society may have a significant threat of poor health and malnutrition as a society cannot access nutritious and sustainable diets. Thus, pandemic generates an income shock projected to increase unemployment, poverty, and household food insecurity. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to acquire the relevant evidence from literature about food security and food assistance programmes. A systematic review was conducted across Academia, EBSCO, Google Scholar, JSTORE, Pub Med, Springer, and Scopus, and a search was performed between March-August 2020 for the accretion. Food security systems and FAPs would be analyzed more comprehensively and suggests the prerequisite for the central and state government to carefully utilize both non-governmental and administrative interventions to drop the hunger rate and improve the food security status.
TopIntroduction
Covid-19 pandemic, the primary cause of illness, death, and economic devastation, ultimately bent the food security system and supply chain. The effects of COVID-19 on the billions of individuals afflicted by the epidemic is not confined to the virus's direct health hazards. It impacts negatively on regional and national food supply chains and economy, compromising their food security. COVID-19 showed the flaws in regional and international systems, as well as the vulnerability of our food supply chains and how easily they may be disrupted. In summary, it gives light on the essential issue of food system resilience and its relationship to people's food and nutrition security. Globally, the epidemic has worsened food insecurity, resulting in adverse public health repercussions (Udmale et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2020). Food insecurity refers to a person or family's inability to obtain sufficient food consistently owing to a lack of financial or other resources (USDA, 2019).
To contain the spread of this pandemic, countries immediately commenced the lockdown, self-isolation and social distancing approach, given the rapid rise in the population of infected persons. These unanticipated restrictions in physical, social and economic activities interrupted the ability to earn a living and affected economic sectors at various levels, ranging from the primary sector to manufacturing and services; thereby threatening the attainment of the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targeted at achieving food security, ending hunger and improved nutrition (Nicola et al., 2020; Niles et al., 2020).
The economic access and affordability posed a threat to food security in two ways: households lost income wholly or partially as a result of completely lockdowns (Laborde et al., 2020 and Bene et al., 2020), and food prices could rise as a result of supply shortages caused by transportation and travel restrictions (Laborde et al., 2020; Bene et al., 2020 and Devereux et al., 2020). As a result of the decline in incomes, foods such as vegetables, fruits and animal products became more expensive (Laborde et al., 2020). School closures may impact a more significant proportion of low-income households due to their inaccessibility (Laborde et al., 2020). Numerous problems arose due to mobility restrictions imposed by economic access barriers (Bene et al., 2020; Devereux et al., 2020; Workie et al., 2020; Naja and Hanadeh, 2020). When stockpiling food, a person's fear of losing physical access to food prompted some people to panic-buy, putting those who were unable to purchase in large quantities at a disadvantage (Workie et al., 2020 Naja and Hanadeh, 2020). A critical step toward resolving India's hunger and poverty has been taken. The country's national and state governments have cooperated to implement the distribution system. Public Distribution System (PDS) is also renowned for providing subsidized food and establishing a global distribution network following World War II (Kishore and Chakrabarti, 2015).