Establishing integrated agriculture-nutrition programmes to diversify household food and diets in rural India
Agriculture is the predominant livelihood for 70 % of the population living in rural India
Abstract
Agriculture is the predominant livelihood for 70 %of the population living in rural India, and food expenses occupy a major proportion of their household budget. Rural household diets suggest that agricultural growth has contributed to increasing calorie intake with very minimal effect on the intake of protein and micronutrients. This in turn causes weak positive impact of agriculture on household dietary diversity and nutrient adequacy. Given the prevalence of high levels of under-nutrition and a large population dependent on agriculture, recent thinking globally on leveraging agriculture for nutrition security has encouraged the agricultural sector to realign its focus not only to increase food production, but also to address under-nutrition. Against this background, an exploratory study was conducted in resource poor villages of Wardha and Koraput districts in the states of Maharashtra and Odisha in India, to investigate how location-specific Farming System for Nutrition (FSN) interventions can potentially improve the diversity of household diets and nutrition outcomes. A detailed baseline study was undertaken to identify the existing disconnect between agriculture-nutrition linkages
This research is supported by the Department for International Development’s by the Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) programme
Citation
A. V. Vijaya Bhaskar, D. J. Nithya, S. Raju, R. V. Bhavani (2017) Establishing integrated agriculture-nutrition programmes to diversify household food and diets in rural India. Food Security (2017) 9, Pages 981-999