Dynamics of Calorie Intake in Rural Bihar

Based on the sample survey data of nearly 466 households collected from five villages of Katihar district located in North Eastern Bihar, the paper tries to identify some of the important factors responsible for change in calorie consumption of the population living at the margin. In a way, it also tries to establish the relationship between direct access to foodgrains from a variety of sources such as access to ownership of land, wages in kind, access to leased-in land, ownership of livestock, etc., with calorie intake of the rural population in the survey region. In doing so, it also, in a very brief manner, focuses on comparative role of other factors such as money and income in this regard. Further, there is also an attempt to highlight the variations in average calorie intake as well as chronic poverty across different occupational categories in the survey region and identify a set of factors responsible for such variations.