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
Benefits of Improving Ground Water Recharge
Wardha district is comprised of 1006 villages located in its eight blocks. The total population of Wardha district is 1.29 million (12,96,157); out of this, 4, 20,873 population (32.47%) lives in urban area, whereas 8,75,284 population (67.52 %) is inhabitant of rural areas. The total geographical area of Wardha district is 6309 sq km or 6,29,000 ha of land, of which 4,26,200 ha area is under cultivation. Around 3, 83,300 ha area is covered under Kharif season, while only 43,600 ha area is cultivated under Rabi season. The important crops like cotton, soya bean and pigeon pea (Tur) are raised during Kharif season, wheat and green gram during Rabi season and ground nut during the summer season.
Average rainfall of Wardha district is 1062 mm. The surface rain water runoff takes away fertile top soil and that leads to severe soil erosion. This enormous loss of soil adversely affects its fertility status and land use. About 10 % of the eroded material usually gets deposited in streams and rivers resulting in silting up of river beds and reservoirs, thereby reducing water flows, ground water recharge and water retention capacity of the soil. This, in turn, decreases the crop productivity, ultimately resulting into lower incomes to the farmers.
Measures like rejuvenation of rivers/streams, construction of check dams, percolation tanks, farm ponds, recharging of existing wells, promotion of group lift irrigation, group water lifting device, group wells, etc. along with soil & water conservation measures such as Nala plugging, construction of Gabion structures, farm bunds and contour bunds have been initiated by Kamalnayan Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation with an active participation of the local community. For efficient and judicious use of available water, drip and sprinkler irrigation systems have also been promoted along with less water intensive and short duration cash crops. Following are the few experiences shared by the farmers of the region.
The efforts were made by Kamalnayan Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation for improving productivity with creation of various rain water harvesting structures. Following are the few of the experiences shared by the farmers.
Mahadev Vithobaji Mate is a famer of village Kinhala of Deoli taluka. Most of the agriculture land ina the village is rainfed and the farmers are in loss due to low productivity in absence of irrigation facilities. He was convinced about the benefits of farm pond as discussed in the village level meetings conducted by KJBF. He constructed a farm pond of size 15m x 10m x 3m with a total storage volume of 450 m3. He established drip irrigation system on his farm to optimize the use of water available in the farm pond. He experienced substantial rise in the productivity of cotton and pigeon pea which improved his net earnings from Rs 39000 to Rs. 81500/-.
Diwakar Shankarrao Chavare is a farmer of village Andori of Deoli taluk. He has 3 acres of rainfed land and was cultivating crops during Kharif season only. With the creation of group well in 2010 with the support given by KJBF, he began to cultivate crops during Rabi season also, because of which his net earnings were enhanced from Rs. 16500 to Rs. 100500.
Babanraoji Yewale is a resident of Amangaon village of Seloo taluka. He has 5 acres of rainfed land and he was growing cotton and pigeon pea crops only. A percolation tank was constructed in the village by KJBF to improve the rate of recharge of ground water table. Babanraoji began to lift the water available in the percolation tank for irrigation. This has not only improved the productivity of crops but also the number of crops as he began to cultivate vegetables and wheat. As a result, his net earnings got increased from Rs.16700 to Rs.101400.
Anil Chintaman Itware is a farmer of Sujatpur village of Samudrapur taluk. He has 5 acres of land which was rainfed till 2014. In rainy season, the land used get water logged and he could not cultivate any crop during Kharif. On the other hand, he could not cultivate crops in Rabi season too due to lack of irrigation facility. In 2014, he was helped by KJBF to construct a recharge pit of size 22 ft diameter and 7 ft deep. As a result, he could now irrigate 2.5 acres of his farm in Kharif as well as Rabi which has improved his net earnings from loss to Rs.64900.
Avinash Shambhaji Lende is a farmer of village Andori of Deoli taluka. He has 3 acres of land and a farm well. He was not able to support the required irrigation to the Kharif crops and was also not able to raise Rabi crops due to less water availability in the farm well. In the year 2013, he was guided to have a well recharge pit to improve the water availability in the well. Due to this, the level of water in well got increased by 6 ft and he began to cultivate wheat on one acre of land. The productivity of Kharif crops also got improved as he could provide required number of irrigation cycles. Now, his net earnings have been raised from Rs.16000 to Rs.67000.
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 Foundation (KJBF) in 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 in the villages.
The main livelihood support i.e. agriculture should be supplemented with agro processing facilities and direct outlet for the farmers to sale their produce. Mono cropping has its own drawback of making the agriculture dependent on middle person 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.
KJBF 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 produce 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. Besides KJBF is also helping the families to establish small scale processing units for the crops cultivated by them. For example, processing of wheatm sorghum into Papad, Chilli and tamarind into Chatani, fruits into pickles, etc. This is not only the value addition but also generated employment opportunities for the landless poor families of the village. Thus agriculture can reduce poverty in the village. The following case story illustrate the same.
Rural Poor Family Striving Hard for Sustaining Livelihood
Maina Dnyneshwar Vasu is 55 years old living in village Pimpalgaon of Deoli taluk of Wardha district and is a member of Shri. Swami Samarth self-help group formed in 2009. She has 2 sons. Both of them are married. Elder son lives separately in the same village with his family while younger divorcee son lives with them. They own 5 acres of irrigated land. Her husband could not help in farming as he is suffering from health problems.
Since last 15 years they are living in the farm in a small hut. Repeated failure of crops in the past few years made their conditions miserable. Their present financial condition could not support the farming. They even could not afford any fan inside the house. Maina lacks the access to proper health care services due to poor financial conditions. They also do not have ration benefits as they come under OBC category.
Maina is guided to initiate an income generating activity for improving her financial conditions during SHG meetings. She was confident that Garam Masals prepared by her would impress the consumers and so she began to sale this product since 2014. Her son Manoj began to sale the Garam Masala in the village and nearby villages on his bike. He also began to sale Sabudana and dry coconut along with homemade Garam Masala. As a part of marketing strategy, he sale the quality products at a comparatively cheaper price than available in the village grocery shop. He earns Rs.400 weekly through this income generating activity. For further improving the income Maina thought of selling Groundnut Laddu, Sesame laddu and mix Groundnut and Futana Laddu. She was helped to try out these products in the market during organization of mass gatherings by KJBF.
KJBF representative further guided them to adopt practices of zero budget natural farming for cultivation of their land. They are also motivated to collect the quotations of the required machineries and having a business plan. They were supported with the required finance through revolving fund by KJBF.
Now they are growing onion, chilli and coriander seeds required for Garam Masala along with sun hemp, cotton, pigeon pea and vegetables. They are selling Sharbat of sun hemp flowers which is medicinal and protect from sun stroke. They sale vegetables at village level. They were helped to develop market in Nagpur and Wardha by rendering them opportunity to participate in Agriculture exhibitions. Now their monthly income has raised to Rs.15000 and they are planning to reconstruct the house and could afford the medical care. The most important is the happiness and smile which the family has regained.
Dear Sir,
Greetings !
Please find enclosed here with the article for discussion on subject Sustainable farming systems for food and nutritional security. Hope you will find it relevant and useful.
Thank you !
Best Regards,
Sonali Phate
Kamalnayan Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation, Wardha
Pin - 442001
Maharashtra, India
Sonali Phate
Kamalnayan Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation in Wardha district of Maharashtra, India has extended training, seed and monitoring support to 7000 farmers since 2013 The most crucial step was to develop direct consumer linkages and profitable market linkages for the farmers covered. The focused efforts were made to develop forward linkages at district, block as well as village level to fulfil the objective.
Every year we used to organize Grain Festival at Wardha town for developing direct consumer linkages for the farmers practicing natural farming. This year the event could not be organized due to COVID - 19 restrictions. The positive signs that we could notice this year are quite encouraging. The consumers directly contacted farmers participated every year in the Grain Festival for purchase of grains and pulses and other processed products. The team of Bajaj Foundation facilitated decentralized cleaning, grading and transportation processes. They also intervened in deciding marketing rates. The farmers supplied the demand at door steps during locked down situations.
The efforts resulted in strengthening direct consumer linkages for 4344 farmers. They sold 19 varieties of agriculture produce and recorded total business of Rs.4.75 Cr. Besides seed of amount Rs.18 .50 lakh has been exchanged by Bajaj Foundation among the farmers to resolve the seed availability issues.
Market for perishable commodity that is vegetables and fruits has been established for farmers by arranging mobile vegetable selling vehicle The people have been convinced for purchase of poison free vegetables.
Such kind of efforts need to replicated with the support of Gram Panchayat or village institutions to overcome the impact of COVID - 19 outbreak on food value chains.