Koraaput, a district in Odisha, is a beautiful landscape, rich in biodiversity and is mainly home to the tribal population. But there is also a contradiction. There is a lot of poverty and malnutrition. There is no dearth of government schemes, as direct feeding programs or schemes for livelihood activities. Nevertheless, the level of malnutrition is high. Based on the National Family Health Survey-5 Data (2019-21), 43% of children under the age of five are stunted (low-height-ayu-yu) and 33% lower weight. Only 17% are fed sufficient diet. More than 50% of women are anemic.
The question is, what is it that people can order themselves to reach a healthy diet and a better environment?
The inter -crop of rice, maize and red grams. Photo: Special arrangement
A change towards nutrition security
Between 2013 and 2022, Ms. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) launched a community-based model of nutrition literacy to empower tribal communities to diversify its domestic food basket with nutritious foods. Its purpose was to facilitate a transformational process, which was to move towards nutritional security by the community. Since it is an agricultural population with small and marginal land holdings and is engaged in subsistence farming, a nutrition-sensitive farming approach to maximize food production and diversify cleanliness and infant and young children feeding practices (IYCF It was adopted with. Since the change begins at the individual level, it was decided to build the ability of adult men and women through a residential training program.
The first step was to make the community sensitive to their own nutritional status. This included assessing the nutrition status of women, children, adolescent boys and girls, which included their height and weight, consolidating secondary data and presenting them to the community. After subsequent discussions, the villagers agreed to select some men and women of every village, representing various caste groups, undergoing a residential training program on major nutrition concepts, such as a balanced diet, IYCF Practices, dietary diversity, hygiene and hygiene role hygiene, and nutrition sensitive agriculture in which crop diversity, backyard poultry and, wherever possible, Pickelvance was involved.
Some residential training programs were held at periodic intervals in each about two and a half days long, six months. These activity based and it played group work, discussion, role, after which the situation and possible solutions were analyzed.
This approach was to attach participants in a dialogue to discuss theoretical aspects from the point of view of their own knowledge inherent in social, cultural, economic and political context. The participants discussed how caste, class and gender dimensions affected the nutritional security of various family members at the domestic level. He compared new learning with his current knowledge and he was satisfied when his current knowledge was repeated. His belief about dietary diversity was based on ‘Dish Count’ instead of ‘Food Group’ count.
As a participant commented, ‘We never thought about both everyday diet and vegetables. As long as someone was in the form of rice, we were satisfied. ‘He was happy to know that he was a patron of a variety of traditional rice varieties.
Group activity in training and agricultural scheme for nutrition. Photo: Special arrangement
Collective power
While social spaces are usually prescribed hierarchically, residential training gave them an opportunity to connect with people from other villages and both sexes. He planned how they can introduce and cultivate more nutritious crops on various types of land and in their home gardens. He discovered the benefits of taking collective decisions and action rather than personal efforts in demanding government rights, and realized that his efforts to improve domestic nutrition security would have to go to the panchayat level beyond the boundaries of their villages. Messages and songs were created by participants by participants made and composed by participants such as a balanced diet, dietary diversity, hygiene and women support. While they knew about some government rights, they were eager to learn about many more.
More than 200 men and women from over 70 villages were trained in residential training programs, which became ‘community champions’ in changing themselves and their communities. He identified the needs of further training, mainly to cover the use of seed treatment, vermi-compost usage, use of organic fertilizers, mushroom production, post-harvesting technology and price joints. These training programs were organized in villages. In 10 years, about 1,000 men and women were trained in various aspects of agriculture, animal husbandry and piscucculture, such as a community resource base for nutritional security was created to address the underlying issues under malnutrition through domestic nutrition security Was gone
Community Champion shared various health and nutrition messages with their families, friends and fellow villagers, when engaged in agricultural work, on their way in the market, women self -help group meetings, or in tea shops or festival programs Even during. He also called village meetings to discuss the creation of hunger-free villages.
They lead for example. He fulfilled both activities personally and collectively. Those who had upland used to start cultivating various types of crops. Many of them started growing more vegetables and fruits. The home garden was revived and at the beginning of the program at the beginning of the program, the variety of crops up to nine crops increased by almost four crops.
A female champion withdrew her land to resume agricultural activities. Another, which was landless, took a piece of land on lease to grow food crops. Another landless woman started growing vegetables using the foundation of the house that she was building. Paddy fields which were kept fallow after the crop, were now used for pulse farming, which was using residual moisture.
The diversity in crop production was seen in Mothra and Dergida (name changed) panchayats in Biperida blocks. While earlier, 71% of families were cultivating only two to three varieties of crops, more than 60% of the projects were cultivating four to five varieties of crops. At the beginning of the program, about 90% of the houses had home gardens for about five months. Finally, in more than 50% of homes, the home gardens were operational for more than seven to nine months. With the growth of four varieties of crops, the houses began to grow nine to 11 varieties. Domestic dietary diversity improved. There was a significant increase in consumption of pulses, leafy vegetables, tubers, fruits, chickens, fish and wild food.
Some prepared biocomosts and used it for gardens of their home. Most of the male champions began to decide on agricultural decisions with their wives. The female champion worked with a recognized Social Health Worker (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers to spread nutrition messages. Sanya (name changed) of Maligad village said, “I give my daughter leafy vegetables and ripe fruits, dhal, eggs because she is anemic and was recently discharged from the hospital. ‘
Convenient change
Villagers also monitored direct feeding programs under integrated child development services. Laccha (name changed) in the village, there was no Anganwadi center. The community woman champion organized village meetings and talked about the need for one. The villagers passed a resolution for the approval of an Anganwadi in their village and the male champion followed it until the Center was approved. He monitored the building construction, and organized the inauguration on completion. He also revived the defending village structures for Nutrition Security such as community grain bank, discussing the condition of his village in Gram Sabha (Gram Parishad) meetings and developed a holistic plan for hunger-free villages.
The wheels of change have been set in motion with people chasing their health and nutrition security in the villages of Korput.
Ram Narayanan is Senior Fellow, Nutrition, Ms. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Akshay Kumar Panda is Senior Development Coordinator, Ms. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Zipore, Odisha. DJ Nutrition Nutrition Scientist, Ms. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu are
Published – 21 February, 2025 12:16 AM IST