JUANG LIVELIHOOD AND FOOD INSECURITY ISSUES: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND THE WAY FORWARD

The issue of food insecurity has remained as a major concern for several tribal households in Odisha who mostly depend on collection of Minor Forest Produces and agriculture as their livelihood sources. It has been a major challenge for the government and administration of the states like Odisha where quite a significant number of populations are estimated to be absolutely poor and they suffer from food insecurity and malnutrition. Agriculture and collection of forest produces are still found to be one of the important contributors to the state economy whereas changes in climate and weather conditions as well as occurrences of calamities like, insufficient rain fall, flood, drought and cyclone have affected negatively the food production in the state to a great extent. This has been one of the reasons that gave Odisha an unwanted status of the second poorest state in India. The present paper discusses this issue of Food Insecurity and Livelihood problem by taking the case study of Juang tribe of Odisha. It also focuses on the loopholes that are prevalent within the Government sponsored schemes and programmes because of which the food insecurity issues and livelihood-related problems have not been resolved from several years.