There is also growing evidence of the benefits to mother and child of initiation within one hour of birth. Even though India has a host of schemes to fight hunger, structural deficiencies have left a large number of the poor in India at risk of malnourishment.Contemporary research has confirmed the crucial importance of nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life.5 billion acres are not eaten and left to rot. or. According to the United Nations, India is estimated to use more than 230 cubic kilometres of fresh water annually for producing food items that will be ultimately wasted. A lack of education on post-harvest practices often results in poor quality control and food being damaged during handling. Undernourish are essential to prevent children getting infections on account of related ailments like diarrhoea and pneumonia, which impair nutrient absorption. The child cannot.Much less investment is required to maintain adequate nourishment for children than is required to repair broken children.The Food Corporation of India (FCI) was set up in 1964 to offer impetus to price support systems, encourage nationwide distribution and maintain sufficient buffer of staples like wheat and rice but its performance has been woefully inadequate in comparison to the needs of the country. For many children, chronic malnutrition begins in the womb, with 20 per cent having a low birth weight. Despite the spectacular strides made in economic growth and having a technological boom, India still continues to struggle to attain freedom from hunger. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today. Many of the things we need can wait. Undernourishment can lower a child’s IQ, increase the risk of diet-related non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases, and reduce productivity.”— Gabriela MistralIndia is booming, but its children are still starving. Yet, it is unable to feed millions of its people, especially women and children. For instance, the Indian government is seeking to streamline and modernise agricultural value chains through reformation of the PDS to reduce the waste and loss associated with the distribution and storage of foodgrains.The tragedy is that India produces enough food to meet the needs of its entire population, and has at its disposal arable land that has the potential to produce a food surplus for export. Besides this, nearly 300 million barrels of oil used in the process are also ultimately wasted.Every year, the government purchases millions of tonnes of grain from the farmers to ensure that they get a good price for their produce for numerous food subsidy programmes and to maintain an emergency buffer. Ninety per cent of our brain develops in the first two years of birth and the quality of nutrition during this stage determines the long-term physical health, learning ability, and future productivity. Several countries are now using metal grain silos to guard against fungus attacks on the grain stock. A package of basic measures — including programmes to encourage mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children for up to six months, OEM bread making machine fortifying basic foods with essential vitamins and minerals and increased cash transfers targeted at the poorest families — can turn the tide. As writer Pallavi Aiyar has written in her excellent book Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China, “If born rich, it is better to be Indian, and if born poor, it is better to be Chinese”. Imagine all of that — and you get an idea of the amount of food the world wastes every year. Other than increased susceptibility, the chronic impact of long-term malnutrition in human and economic terms is well known.India accounts for more than three out of 10 stunted children globally, largely owing to a lack of good quality food, poor care and feeding practices and inadequate water, sanitation and health services.
Now imagine that land is only used to produce food.The writer is an author, columnist and member of the National Commission on Financial Inclusion for Women at the
Niti Aayog end-of Tags: economic growth, heart diseases.Added to the wastage of food, there is a depletion of precious resources involved in its production. Apart from this, a strong will in the political class and imaginative thinking on the part of policymakers is needed. Breastfed infants are more likely to have better physical and mental health, well into adulthood.Malnutrition threatens a child’s physical as well as mental well being for many years to come. The FCI has neither warehouse capacity nor the manpower to manage this humongous stockpile of foodgrains.In recent years, numerous initiatives and interventions have been undertaken by the Indian government and local and international actors to target food losses and wastage across the agricultural value chain.Fortification of staple food vehicles such as flour, salt, oil and milk is now being seen as a crucial component for tackling food and nutrition security as well as child malnutrition. It is bearing witness to a triple burden of malnutrition — the coexistence of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and overnutrition. It is almost a third of the world’s total food supply. It also reduces a mother’s risk of post-partum haemorrhage, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. Around one per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) gets shaved off annually in the form of food waste