Entre a fome e a burocracia : políticas públicas e a segurança alimentar na Índia

This dissertation deals with food and nutrition security in the republic of India. The proposal of this doctoral dissertation is to present and critically analyze food security as a field of study and apply it to the case of India, which is characterized by the complexity and gigantism of a food and nutrition security policy aimed at 10 percent of the world population in a single Nation State. This thesis is directed and structured around two methodological and theoretical research questions and a third analytical one. The first methodological and theoretical question: can food and nutrition security be defined and measured objectively? The second methodological and theoretical question: can public policy in general and food and nutrition security policy specifically be analyzed as to its fundamentals qualitatively? And the analytical question: is the Indian food security system environmentally and socioeconomically sustainable? In order to answer these questions a double methodological approach was adopted – exploratory and explicative –, organized in 2 parts, totaling 7 chapters. The first 4 chapters examine the conceptual and theoretical reference of the historical and empirical evolution of the concept of food security, having its starting point in the growing understanding of malnutrition, hunger, poverty and livelihoods in a macroeconomic context. The main result found in the research of chapters 1 to 4 is the realization that food and nutrition security, though defined and understood with broad acceptance by academia and practitioners, does not possess a set of unequivocal indicators that are also simple and direct to operate. The fifth chapter presents the main theories and models for analyzing public policy. In that chapter, the results show that theories and models are not exclusive of others and also do not compete against each other, and do, in fact, allow for qualitative analysis of public policy. Of all the theories (and models) of analysis, the most empirically well based is Public option, as it has been widely tested and enlarged. Its usage for the purposes of this dissertation thesis, nonetheless, was much curtailed by the lack of data on formulation and execution of Indian policy on food security. In the second part, chapters 6 and 7 deal with the case study of India as a political unity. Initially, the Famine Codes are explored as the methodological and historical foundations of public policy for food security in India in the 20th century and still present in contemporary formulations of policy. Also, other important governmental policies aimed at the elimination of chronic malnutrition and extreme poverty. The main results are that the set of public policies for food and nutrition security of the Government of India do not accomplish their mission and enjoy low levels of environmental and socioeconomic efficacy and efficiency, apart from diversions that are driven by the structure of the programs themselves. The second part of chapter 7 is a case study of the same set of national policies applied to the state of Karnataka. The results showed that state level results mirror the national level. In conclusion, having the results as a basis, a proposal with a set of recommendations are also included, aimed mostly at structural changes to the logistics sub policy – storage and transportation and distribution – of the national food security system of India.