Food and Nutrition

Featured Articles
December 6, 2022 Need to shift to a more sustainable diet without compromising on major nutrients and calories
Historically, India has been a net exporter of virtual water (Image: PxHere)
August 21, 2022 Floods are not feared, but rather welcomed by the Mishing communities from Majuli island in Assam as they bring bountiful fish- a rich source of food, nutrition and livelihood for the community.
The Majuli island, a haven for fish (Image Source: Usha Dewani, India Water Portal)
June 19, 2022 Odisha Millets Mission is trying to bring back the glory of millets in tribal areas
A range of millet recipes and ready to cook items are sold by Millets on Wheels in Jashipur block in Mayurbhanj district. This initiative is supported by Odisha Millets Mission (Image: Odisha Millets Mission)
April 16, 2022 The report looks at what the transition could look like in ten specific foodscapes
Foodscapes for people and nature (Image: TNC)
January 30, 2022 MGNREGS: Even after the inclusion of additional funds amounting to Rs. 25,000 crores via supplementary budgets, allocations were 12 per cent less than the previous year's revised estimates
A school boy from Tilonia drinks from a tap from a rainwater harvesting tank (Image: Barefoot photographers of Tilonia)
January 18, 2022 The recent NFHS-5 data finds that stunting and wasting among under five children in the country is on the rise. Why is this so? What could be the way out?
Millets for dietary diversity (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
The unsung women fishers of Wular lake
Fisherwomen’s experiences and perspectives about their livelihoods based on the Wular lake. Posted on 02 Jan, 2021 08:20 PM

Nestled in the north Kashmir region is Wular lake, India’s largest freshwater lake or wetland.

The survival of many fisher households living nearby is entirely dependent on Wular lake. (Image: Manju Rawat)
Lost to fluorosis
Fluoride contamination is leaving villagers in Barhet block of Jharkhand crippled, while authorities struggle to find solutions. Posted on 21 Dec, 2020 12:33 PM

“What should I do? I have been bedridden for two years now. My hands and feet do not work.

The state needs to play a key role in identifying fluorosis as well as in developing and executing an action plan to control it. (Image: Rab Nawaz Alam)
Women hold the key to dietary diversity
A study finds that women's control over income and better decisionmaking power can go a long way in improving dietary diversity and tackling malnutrition in rural India. Posted on 17 Oct, 2020 04:04 PM

Evidence world over shows that small scale agricultural production does very little to deal with malnutrition and food insecurity among rural poor.

Empowering women to improve nutritional outcomes (Image Source: India Water Portal)
Forests, the fast disappearing treasure troves of forest dwellers
Rapidly disappearing forests are not only a threat to the biodiversity, but spell death knell for the livelihoods of forest dwellers who depend on them for food and survival. Posted on 08 Oct, 2020 08:08 AM

Forests are disappearing at a fast rate in India.

Dried mahua flowers (Image Source: Pankaj Oudhia via Wikimedia Commons)
Who is the thirstiest of them all?
A study evaluating the water use efficiency of sugarcane, curry banana and paddy among borewell irrigating farmers finds paddy to be the most inefficient and thirstiest of the three. Posted on 23 Sep, 2020 12:34 PM

Agriculture uses as high as 85 percent of the available water in India of which the irrigated area accounts for nearly 48.8 percent of the 140 million hectare (mha) of agricultural land, while the remaining 51.2 percent is rainfed.

Paddy, a thirsty crop (Image Source: IWP Flickr photos)
Gendered impacts of COVID-19
The pandemic affects rural women disproportionately with damaging impacts on their employment, health and security. Posted on 20 Sep, 2020 09:15 PM

COVID-19 has unleashed one of the greatest human tragedies of the contemporary era demonstrating our fragility and has laid bare severe and systemic inequalities at all levels. It provides several lessons in the conduct of all aspects of human personality, professional, societal, and institutional lives globally.

The time-use survey indicates that women are now spending more time on unpaid domestic and care work (Image: Sunita, Pixabay)
Agriculture and food security challenges amid Covid-19
The pandemic has bared our vulnerabilities and shaken our collective consciousness to focus on agriculture and rural economy. Posted on 09 Sep, 2020 03:32 PM

India has seen large scale rural-urban migration of people trying to escape rural distress in the last few decades.

Women farmers produce vegetables through innovative farming practices in Banka, Bihar. They can sell their produce at regional markets, and earn a better income for their families. (Image: USAID, Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Think, before you have your cup of tea!
Women workers from tea plantations in India are overworked and underpaid. Voiceless, without any rights at the workplace, and their health compromised, they continue to suffer in silence. Posted on 19 Aug, 2020 06:58 PM

India is the second largest tea producer in the world, with production at 1.2 million metric tons

Women workers at a tea plantation in Assam (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Amphan’s impact on farming and livelihood in Sunderbans
Millions of people's homes were swept away and farmlands destroyed during cyclone Amphan in Sunderbans. Posted on 11 Aug, 2020 05:46 PM

The Amphan cyclone has disfigured the lives of people living in the Sundarbans. Houses have been torn apart, farms have been filled with brackish water making the land unsuitable for farming and betel leaves have been destroyed. People in the Sundarbans are in a life-threatening situation with makeshift shacks to live in and no means to earn a living.

Betel (popularly used in paan) plantation is a major occupation in the Sundarbans. Pulak Bhakta is assessing the damage done to his plantation right after Amphan. The plantation is spread over two and a half bigha of land. According to Pulak, the total loss he has suffered is around INR 3 lakhs. Pulak already bears the burden of a loan which he had taken to set up his plantation. His future seems uncertain and bleak now. (Image: WaterAid/ Subhrajit Sen)
Surviving in uncertainty
Gram Vikas stepped up to ensure access to adequate food and to strengthen dignified income-earning opportunities for the most vulnerable households. Posted on 08 Jul, 2020 07:33 PM

Uncertainty - the pervasive feeling that all of us have been living with from the middle of March 2020. It's the same in our partner villages in Odisha and Jharkhand. Communities we work with have been facing and overcoming uncertainties all through their lives. But this time, the crisis has put unusual stress on their abilities to cope.

Image: Ajaya Behera
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