The organic linkages between hunger and poverty are well established, the link can further be extended to limited access to physical resources, particularly good cropping land and irrigation water. We at VAAGDHARA also used to consider this as quite applicable reasons behind higher degree of malnutrition among small and marginal farmers in indigenous tribal community in Banswara district of Rajasthan, India. It was participation in LANSA supported action research program which helped us to extend our notion that it is also a play of lack of knowledge, efficient utilization of resources as per their capacity, and also following the practice of "nutrient flow in a cyclic manner.
This research program helped us to work with 600 indigenous small and marginal farmer families (30 groups of 20 families each) and move them above in reducing hunger (both in terms of quantity and quality). In this program we utilised approach of "Participatory learning and Action" to facilitate thinking process of participating groups and families. The process only helped to change mind set of these small and marginal farmers from the dilemma of farming for market or farming for family and to be specific farming for nutrition. The yearlong process of PLA focusing on nutrition sensitive farming system worked on the aspects of
- Resource assessment and planning according to existing capacity of resources (land type, soil type, moisture availability etc.)
- Improved "food diversity" from cultivated only to collected, cultivated and processed
- Efficient utilisation of family resources, where importance was also given to so called wastelands as forest food patches.
Our experience in this learning events is that Nutrition Sensitive Farming System approach can help reducing hunger, even hidden hunger (low nutrient intake) to great extent and slowly-slowly help them move out of clutch of "nutrient poverty" may not be "currency poverty". It will demand for changing attitude that best nutrition come from purchased food only, that too with higher cost food items. This is behaviour change process also thus group approach yields better as it gives space for reflection to participating families as well as facilitators.
VAAGDHARA
السيد Deepak Sharma