1) Does Chapter 1 adequately reflect the current situation of malnutrition and its related causes and impacts, particularly in line with the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda? What are the underlying problems that currently hinder food systems to deliver healthy diets?
Now-a-days importance of consumption of wild varieties of vegetables has been lost in the regular diet. In the past few decades the availability of wild fruit has also been lowered down as a result of deforestation. This has been adversely impacting the nutritional status with reduction of no cost food availability. Instead it has been observed that the advertisement of fast food has been tempting the community for consumption thus automatically increasing the demand in the extreme remote rural areas also. The food is ready to cook and cheaper in price. This is also impacting adversely on health status. There is need to promote the locally available foods and their recipes. The studies describing the nutritional status of wild fruits and vegetables are already available.
2) What should be the guiding principles to promote sustainable food systems that improve nutrition and enable healthy diets? What are your comments about the principles outlined in Chapter 2? Are they the most appropriate for your national/regional contexts?
Support should be raised for cultivation of multiple/mixed crops over one fourth acre of land through supply of seeds and cost of cultivation especially for marginal farming community. This one fourth acre of land should be cultivated with adoption of organic farming practices. There should at least 5 wild fruit varieties of plants growing on the bunds of this one fourth acre of land. The food grown over this one fourth acre of land should be consumed by the family and not for sale. Dairy production should also be streamlined in similar way.
3) In consideration of the policy areas identified in Chapter 3 and the enabling factors suggested in paragraph 41 of the Zero Draft, what policy entry points should be covered in Chapter 3, taking into account the need to foster policy coherence and address policy fragmentation?
Empowerment of local community should be priority so that community should understand and begin to adopt holistic approach towards improved nutritional status. Beside national schemes such as MGNREGS should be utilized for maintaining community nutritional (kitchen) gardens at open spaces available under Gram Panchayat. The food grown should be supplied to the landless and resource poor families residing in that particular village.
The region has been experiences low rain fall and frequent draught since last 3 years. The schemes for harvesting roof rainwater by each of the household should be designed and implemented. At village level water harvesting programmes should be carried out to conserve the water.
4) Can you provide specific examples of new policies, interventions, initiatives, alliances and institutional arrangements which should be considered, as well as challenges, constraints, and trade-offs relevant to the three constituent elements of food systems presented in Chapter 3? In your view, what would the “ideal” food system look like, and what targets/metrics can help guide policy-making?
Wardha district is one of the 35 districts in Maharashtra state in western India. This district is part of Nagpur division. Wardha is primarily an agriculture oriented district. Cotton farming and soyabean cultivation in kharif is quite common. Recently the district has been in news because of a number of suicides that have been committed by the farmers owing to the agricultural loans they cannot repay with the major reasons being bad crops, droughts and lack of irrigation facilities in the region.
Kamalnayan Jamnalal Bajaj Foundationin Wardha is doing many activities for rural people's betterment. These activities are aimed at protection of natural resources, agriculture, social progress and providing options of livelihood. Integrated approach of all these activities led to reducing poverty and improving access to safe food in the villages.
The main livelihood support i.e. agriculture should be supplemented with agro processing facilities and support for direct outlet for the farmers to sale their produce. Mono cropping has its own drawback of making the agriculture dependent on middle man driven forward linkages and loss of bargaining power by the farmers. Small and marginal farmers are the most affected. Second most important think is small and marginal farmers do not have storage space to hold the farm produce and wait for profitable market price.
Bajaj Foundation has successfully take up the promotion of multi cropping to minimize the risk of total crop failure as well as making the things easy for farmers to sale the excess of produce after household consumption in weekly markets. Every year Grain Festival has been organized to build direct consumer linkage which has led to opening of permanent outlet at district place where farmers began to sale fresh vegetables, fruits and other agricultural produce. This is improving their profit margins and they regain their bargain power. They need not to wait for season end to earn money. They are earning almost every day and thus relieved from financial distress. On the other hand this has been improving access to safe food for the consumers as well as diversified their food basket Besides Bajaj Foundation is also helping the families to establish small scale processing units for the crops cultivated by them. For example, processing of wheat sorghum into Papad, Chilli and tamarind into Chatani, fruits into pickles, etc. Similarly wild vegetables have been processed into dry forms with traditional methods. This is not only the value addition but also generated employment opportunities for the landless poor families of the village. Further Farmers’ Producer Companies has been promoted for building backward and forward linkages for the farming community growing organic food.
Further details are available on the web site : www.bajajfoundation.org
Sonali Phate