According to a new report from the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) that published July 15, researchers have mapped opportunities for India to reduce hunger and improve overall nutrition by reorienting its agricultural policies in favor of more nutritious foods.
In “Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition in India 2020: Leveraging Agriculture to Achieve Zero Hunger,” TCI researchers assess India’s progress toward achieving zero hunger by 2030 – a sustainable development goal established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
The new report assesses the prospects for enhancing productivity and increasing farm income across India, and it emphasizes the need for continued investment in agricultural infrastructure.
Since the late 1960s, India has made considerable progress in reducing hunger in terms of calories, but many people remain undernourished, and now the country is also facing rising rates of obesity. The TCI report says this is due to government policies that boosted staple grains, like wheat and rice, which helped meet people’s caloric needs but are now inhibiting the production of more diverse and nutritious foods.
“To provide its people with nutritious foods, India must turn the focus of its food policies from quantity to quality,” said Prabhu Pingali, director of TCI and professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, with joint appointments in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS). “Without policies that promote access to and availability of nutrient-rich foods, much of the country is left with diets high in either nutrient-poor grains or fattening processed foods.”
In the economically lagging and less agriculturally productive states of central and eastern India, 63% of dietary calories come from cereal grains. This leads to stunting and wasting of bodies due to nutrient deficiencies in diets, especially for the impoverished.
In contrast, in the more developed and more agriculturally productive states of northwestern and southern India, access to processed foods and edible fats have had the opposite effect. In the last 10 years, the rate of obesity doubled for men and increased by 62% for women, bringing with it a rise in diabetes and heart disease.
Using district-level data, the report’s authors created maps showing the dominant crops grown in different areas and offered advice for increasing productivity and diversifying local food systems.
For example, for the cropping systems of eastern India – which are less productive due to poor infrastructure and agroclimatic conditions – they recommend adopting crops that require less water, such as pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds.