Koraput, a district in Odisha, is a beautiful landscape, rich in biodiversity and home to a predominantly tribal population. But there is also a paradox. There is rampant poverty and undernutrition. There is no dearth of government schemes, in the form of direct feeding programmes or schemes for livelihood activities. Yet, undernutrition levels remain high. According to an estimate based on the National Family Health Survey-5 data (2019-21) 43% of children under five years of age are stunted (low-height- for- age) and 33% are underweight. Only 17% are fed an adequate diet. More than 50% of women are anaemic.
The question is what is it that people can do themselves order to have access to healthier diets and a better environment?
Inter cropping of rice, maize and red gram. Photo: Special Arrangement
A transformation toward nutrition security
Between 2013 and 2022, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) embarked on a community-based model of nutrition literacy in order to empower tribal communities to take action in diversifying their household food basket with nutritious foods. The aim was to facilitate a transformative process, spearheaded by the community, to move towards nutrition security. As it is an agricultural population with small and marginal land holdings and engaged in subsistence farming, a nutrition-sensitive farming approach to maximise and diversify food production was adopted along with sanitation hygiene and Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices (IYCF). Since transformation begins at the individual level, it was decided to build the capacity of a core group of adult men and women through a residential training programme.
The first step was to sensitise the community to its own nutritional status. This involved assessing the nutritional status of women, children, adolescent boys and girls by taking their height and weight, consolidating secondary data and presenting them to the community. After subsequent discussions, villagers agreed to select a few men and women from every village, representing various caste groups, to undergo a residential training programme on key nutrition concepts, such as a balanced diet, IYCF practices, the role of dietary diversity, sanitation and hygiene, and enabling nutrition sensitive agriculture that included crop diversity, backyard poultry and, wherever possible, pisciculture.
A few residential training programmes, each about two and a half days long, were held at periodic intervals over six months. These were activity based and included group work, discussions, role play followed by an analysis of the situation and possible solutions.
The approach was to engage participants in a dialogue to discuss theoretical aspects from the perspective of their own knowledge rooted in the social, cultural, economic and political context. Participants discussed how caste, class and gender dimensions affected nutrition security of different family members at the household level. They compared the new learning with their existing knowledge and were satisfied when some of their existing knowledge was reiterated. Their perception of dietary diversity was based on the ‘dish count’ rather than the ‘food group’ count.
As one participant remarked, ‘we never thought about having both dhal and vegetables in the everyday diet. So long as one was there as accompaniment to rice we were satisfied.’ They were happy to know that they were the custodians of a variety of traditional rice varieties.
Group activity in the training and agricultural planning for nutrition. Photo: Special Arrangement
Collective power
While social spaces are usually hierarchically determined, the residential training gave them an opportunity to engage with people from other villages and with both genders. They planned how they could introduce and cultivate more nutritious crops on different types of land and in their home gardens. They explored the advantages of collective decision making and action rather than individual efforts in demanding government entitlements, and realised that their efforts to improve household nutrition security would have to go beyond the boundaries of their own villages to the panchayat level. Messages and songs were created and composed by the participants on various themes such as a balanced diet, dietary diversity, hygiene, sanitation and support to women. While they were aware of a few government entitlements, they were eager to learn about many more.
More than 200 men and women from over 70 villages were trained in the residential training programmes, becoming the ‘community champions’ in transforming themselves and their communities. They identified further training needs mainly to improve agricultural production covering seed treatment, vermi-compost use, the use of organic fertilizers, mushroom production, post-harvest technology and value addition. These training programmes were organised in the villages. Over 10 years, about 1,000 men and women were trained in various aspects of agriculture, animal husbandry and pisciculture such that a community resource base for nutrition security was created to address underlying issues of undernutrition through household nutrition security.
The community champions shared various health and nutrition messages with their families, friends and fellow villagers when engaged in agricultural work, on their way to the market, in women self help group meetings, or while at a tea shop or even during festival events. They also convened village meetings to discuss creating hunger-free villages.
They led by example. They undertook a range of activities, both individually and collectively. Those who had upland began cultivating a variety of crops. Many of them started growing more vegetables and fruits. Home gardens were revived and the diversity of crops increased from about four crops at the beginning of the programme to nine crops at the time of completion.
One woman champion got her land back from lease in order to resume agricultural activities. Another, who was landless, took a piece of land on lease to grow food crops. Another landless woman began growing vegetables using the foundation of the house she was constructing. Paddy fields that had been kept fallow after harvest were now used for pulse cultivation, making use of the residual moisture.
Diversity in crop production was seen in Mothpera and Deragida (names changed) panchayats in Boiparida block. While earlier, 71% of households were cultivating only two to three varieties of crops, more than 60% were cultivating four to five varieties of crops at the end of the project. About 90% of households had operational home gardens for about five months at the start of the programme. Towards the end, in more than 50% of households, home gardens were operational for more than seven to nine months. From growing four varieties of crops earlier, households began growing nine to 11 varieties. Household dietary diversity improved. There was a significant increase in the consumption of pulses, leafy vegetables, tubers, fruits, poultry, fish and wild food.
Some prepared biocompost and used it for their home gardens. Most of the male champions began to make decision on agricultural decision alongwith their wives. Women champions worked closely with Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers to spread nutrition messages. Sanya of Maligad village (name changed) said, ‘I give my daughter leafy vegetables and ripe fruits, dhal, egg because she is anaemic and was recently discharged from hospital.’
Facilitating change
Villagers also monitored the direct feeding programme under the Integrated Child Development Services. In Lecha (name changed) village, there was no anganwadi centre. The community women champions organised village meetings and spoke about the need for one. The villagers passed a resolution for the sanction of an anganwadi in their village and the male champions followed this up with the block office till the centre was sanctioned. They supervised the building construction, and upon completion organised an inauguration. They also revived defunct village structures for nutrition security such as the community grain bank, discussed their village situation in the gram sabha (village council) meetings and developed an overall plan for hunger-free villages.
The wheels of change have been set in motion in Koraput’s villages with the people pursuing their health and nutrition security.
Rama Narayanan is Senior Fellow, Nutrition, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Akshay Kumar Panda is Senior Development Coordinator, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Jeypore, Odisha. D.J. Nithya is Nutrition Scientist, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Published – February 21, 2025 12:16 am IST