RELATION BETWEEN MALNUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY

Dear brothers and sisters, 9^th Jan. 2011

By now, you will appreciate the need to reduce the extreme malnutrition of 46% among the children of India. Reducing malnutrition will improve child health, reduce child mortality, enable children to go to school, and to gain productive employment.

Availability of nutritious food and safe water will enable the girl child to grow well, go to school, take up gainful employment or vocation, and give her strength to bear and give birth to healthy children. It will also reduce malnutrition in pregnant and nursing mothers and reduce maternal mortality.

Better nutrition will enable the people to cope with environmental stresses and climate change in a better way.

You will appreciate that, in this way, better nutrition will naturally lead to higher national economic growth.

Again, reducing malnutrition is dependent on food security. If sufficient food is not available in the country, prices of food grains will increase, and the poor can’t afford to purchase food grains.

Food security is again dependent on sustainability of agriculture.

This again is dependent on good agricultural production, productivity, remunerative prices to farmers, adequate inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, technical assistance, soil testing facilities at reasonable rates or on subsidy. Storage or refrigeration facilities, transportation facilities, marketing facilities, proper trading facilities etc. for the grain produced and necessary policy support etc.

In case of natural calamities or crop losses, loan waiver, loan rescheduling, interest waiver or interest subsidy etc.

Helping the farmer in times of natural calamities is not only helping the farmer to cope with the vagaries of nature, but helping food security and helping ourselves to obtain food at reasonable prices and for ensuring nutritional security particularly for the poorer sections. Otherwise, food prices will become unaffordable to common people and lead to social unrest.

Again, to ensure sustainability of agriculture, sustainable agricultural practices need to be adopted, like:

Organic farming

Non-pesticide based crop management

Integrated Pest, insect and weed management – environmental sustainability

Mixed cropping and alternate cropping

Soil erosion control and fertility management

Environment and ecology management - to ensure proper pollination

Integrated water shed management

Integrated Poultry management

High yielding varieties

Forest management – to ensure biodiversity and supply of diverse seed varieties

I think now you can appreciate the importance of food security of the nation to nutritional security of the large masses, particularly the children of the country.

Now, friends, do you want to become part of the campaign to reduce malnutrition in the children of India? Come, let us work hand in hand.