Review of social and economic issues for food security studies in the Eastern Gangetic Plains

Report | Christian Roth, Mac Kirby, Onil Banerjee, Peter R. Brown, Toni Darbas

Location of research: Nepal, India, Bangladesh

Summary: This literature review aims to contribute towards understanding the incentives, constraints and innovation pathways that have and could increase food security in the alluvial East Gangetic Plains (EGP). The EGP is in hydrological terms part of the Ganges River basin and in geological terms it comprises the eastern section of the Indo-Gangetic Plains. In terms of jurisdictions, it is comprised of: the contiguous Indian States of Bihar and northern West Bengal; the northwest of Bangladesh; and the Terai region within Nepal. In socio-economic terms, the region’s jurisdictions are in varying degrees of agrarian transition and terms of integration into the global economy. There is little doubt as to the persistence of food insecurity in the ‘poverty square’ of South Asia or the fact that it cannot be explained in purely biophysical terms. All of these hydrological, geological, jurisdictional and socio-economic aspects of the EGP are integral to the problem of achieving food security. Thus a systems perspective is necessary to pinpoint consequential interdependencies for increasing food security in the EGP, such as those between energy markets and irrigation development, land redistribution reform and the fragmentation of agricultural holdings, rural livelihood diversification through migration and the availability of agricultural labour.

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