Ensuring nutrition security

Food safety programmes need adjustments

A significant takeaway from the United Nations report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition 2022 is that while the world is moving backwards in its bid to banish hunger, India is among the few lower- and middle-income countries that are bucking this trend. While, globally, the count of undernourished people swelled by nearly 46 million over the past 15 years, it has shrunk in India by nearly 23.5 million, though the scale of malnutrition still remains worrisome. There is no longer any doubt that the prime Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating hunger by 2030 is bound to remain elusive. About 670 million people, or around 8 per cent of the world population, would remain underfed in 2030 even if the global economy, marred by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, recovers to the desired extent.

The recent spike in the prices of cereals, fertilisers and energy has turned food unaffordable for a sizable section of the poor. The Black Sea region accounts for one-third of the world’s wheat and barley production and close to half of fertiliser output, especially that of potassic fertilisers. The food and agricultural policies of various countries would, therefore, need to focus as much on boosting food production as on enhancing its economic access to the poor. The major strides made by India in alleviating hunger are attributed, in part, to liberal consumer subsidies and a slew of food-based social welfare programmes. Unsurprisingly, the targeted public distribution system, involving the supply of free or highly subsidised foodgrains to nearly one third of the population, has come in for a special mention. But the report does not fail to point out that the bids to keep consumer prices in check hurt the interests of farmers, warranting compensation to them in cash or kind.
 

However, regardless of the perceptible strengthening of the country’s food security, more than half the Indian women in the 15-49 age group are anaemic. Besides, about 45 million children below the age of five suffer from wasting, the deadliest form of malnutrition. Additionally, about 149 million children are stunted due to deficiency of essential minerals and vitamins. At the same time, the incidence of obesity among both adults and children is burgeoning, indicating unhealthy food consumption even among the well-fed people. Rampant malnutrition, including imbalanced nutritional intake, is, therefore, a grave issue that still awaits resolution. This has been borne out also by the National Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21). An inter-ministerial committee appointed by the government to go into the findings of this survey has listed lack of affordability, dietary ignorance, and socio-cultural food taboos among the significant factors responsible for rampant malnutrition.

The panel is reported to have observed that the silent crisis of undernourishment has aggravated during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is despite the best and, to an extent, fairly successful efforts made by the government and voluntary organisations to make food available to the affected people. This committee has, therefore, counselled tweaking the National Food Security Law to make inclusion of protein-rich and micro-nutrients-doped food items legally mandated part of the meals provided through food safety programmes in schools and Anganwadis, and under the Poshan Abhiyan, which is aimed specifically at mitigating malnutrition. The time has, thus, come to redefine food security as nutrition security in India, as also globally.