Food Security Under Crisis Situations: The Response of Odisha and West Bengal to Cyclone Amphan and COVID-19

Abstract

In the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic metamorphosed from being a health crisis into becoming a full-fledged humanitarian catastrophe that began affecting nations, governments, and people across the world. During such a time, two states on the Eastern Coast of India were dealing with much more. The states of Odisha and West Bengal had to brace themselves for the arrival of another natural disaster. Super cyclone Amphan, the most powerful cyclone to make landfall in India this century, was arriving at a time when millions of migrant workers were stranded without access to basic amenities and with hardly any social security. How did the states respond to these converging crises? How disaster-resilient were their food systems? This paper shall first delve into the evolution of the concept of food security, the promises and paradoxes of India’s Green Revolution, the effectiveness of India’s welfare architecture in providing security to people over the years and eventually, the manners in which the two neighbouring states of Odisha and West Bengal prepared and responded to these crises. The paper concludes by making important comparisons in the responses adopted by these two states and advocates for governments to make their systems more disaster-resilient for the future..