Amartya Sen on the Bengal famine " I knew of no one in my school or among my friends and relations whose family had experienced the slightest problem during the entire famine; it was not a famine that afflicted even the lower middle classes - only people much further down the economic ladder, such as landless rural labourers." http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1998/sen-autobio.html

The decision makers do not suffer the effects of famine and food shortage, so they do not respond adequately. Only now that the spectre of food shortage is looming large, people are talking about using fertile land for SEZs and other such issues.