Coping with Household Food Insecurity: A Comparative Study of Kharia and Kolha Tribes of Mayurbhanj District of Odisha, India

This article analyses the gaps in food security among the Kharia and Kolha tribes living in Kusumi block of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, India, and how these groups cope with food vulnerability at their household level based on a primary survey in six villages in 2024. Lack of constant income, absence or limited cultivable land, assets and unskilled human resources are some of the factors that perpetuate their food vulnerability. The efforts of the government to address their food insecurity through various food and nutritional programmes, especially the public distribution system (PDS), mid-day meal (MDM) and Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), have hardly reduced their food vulnerability. Instead, both these tribal communities adopt a number of food-based and non-food-based coping strategies whereby they alter their food consumption behaviour and enhance their capability to procure food. The strategies they adopt to arrest household food insecurity are both ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’. Wild food and traditional food institutions still play crucial roles in meeting their household food security, and therefore, any step to strengthen these can allow them to access food resources sustainably. Proper functioning of the food provisioning systems like PDS and ICDS and recognition of Habitat Rights under Forest Right Act (FRA) 2006 can best ensure household food security of both the tribes.