Rooting for sustainable agriculture and food security through improved regulatory governance in India

First Online: 07 September 2019'Zero hunger’ as a sustainable development goal requires macro-level multisectoral innovation in any regulatory setting. This is more so in the case of India, which grapples with poverty, famine, shortage in food supply and massive hike in prices of basic foodstuffs. In this chapter, I critically analyse the recent Indian efforts to overcome challenges posed by the pervasive problem of food insecurity and discuss the issues that India must overcome to position itself in a low-hunger bracket globally. In that I elaborately reflect on whether the prevailing food distribution system is being reformed to achieve aims of creating sustainable food systems through action-oriented policies. Further I contend that agroecological practices in comparison to the intellectual property-centred industrial model are the more sustainable approach in the longer run. However, the high concentration of firms in the sector seems to often create an imbalance, since capitalist tendencies outweigh the presence of any competition in the market. I argue that this imbalance has specifically led to regulatory failure in the Indian context by exemplifying the litigations concerning ag-biotech gene patents held by Monsanto. Thus, improved oversight through better understanding of the longterm goal of regulation in light of the food-health-climate nexus is the need of the hour. Preserving gene diversity, traditional farm practices and adapting to sustainable ways that aid regulatory governance in India is the plausible way to create a hunger-free future, as envisaged in UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s definition of food security