Mechanisms for decentralization of food procurement and leveraging the local agro-food systems can boost nutrition security and move India towards sustainable food production, procurement and processing. A report of an expert panel on the National Food Security Bill of 2010 has already pointed out the advantages of decentralized procurement of foodgrains and storage, with fiscal gains to be made through subsidy reduction.
Many policy moves are recent initiatives, such as the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition (POSHAN) Abhiyan and the National Nutrition Mission, which encourages the use of locally-grown nutritional food items and involvement of farmer producer organizations (FPOs) and women’s self-help groups (SHGs) in the scheme’s implementation. The PM Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) for 2016-2026 and PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme (PMFME) for 2020-2025 provide financial, technical and business support to micro food entrepreneurs, FPOs, SHGs and cooperatives for value chain development and alignment of infrastructure with supply chain needs from the farm gate to retail outlet. These are important.
The need of the hour, though, is a multi-pronged approach focused on short supply chains, sustainable public food procurement and redistribution, a network of partners that support food-processing-driven rural livelihood diversification and diversified diets. To help make affordable food widely available, three partnerships are crucial: with panchayats, the private sector and pathshalas (schools). Private sector involvement could strengthen our food supply infrastructure and aid micro-food processing entrepreneurship in India’s hinterland by deploying resources from schemes like the PMKSY and PMFME. Under their ‘sustainability pledge’, businesses could engage rural FPOs, SHGs and the youth, help develop food infrastructure across agro-climatic zones to provide safe storage, timely processing and marketing of food commodities, control food waste at all stages and follow environment-protective practices. These interventions will not only reduce the carbon footprint of the food industry, but help ensure affordable nutrition choices across income groups through all seasons. An efficient food management system will translate into better transportability, longer shelf life of fresh produce, wider consumer choice and lower prices. A supportive regulatory and policy framework can catalyse all this.
Partnerships with panchayats can aid the engagement of FPOs and SHGs to join hands to cart and process fresh produce locally, manage and maintain safe storage, ensure timely transport and market competitiveness, and see that benefits are equitably shared. The government’s FPO scheme can be catapulted into a movement similar to that of Amul.
The effort could be dovetailed with investments under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. Easy loans to rural food entrepreneurs, training for food banking at storage sites, food cooperatives and FPOs, and innovations by digital startups could all transform our agri-food landscape.
Expanding the role of panchayat members to be ‘nutrition marshals’ would bring short-term benefits of more nutritious school meal programmes and long-term benefits of developing rural enterprises. It will also deliver myriad co-benefits, such as filling technology gaps and preserving traditional culinary skills. It will aid the gradual transition of the PDS from a cereal-based ‘food-security’ system to one offering a wholesome food basket for ‘nutrition security’.
Partnerships with pathshalas for nutrition science and agriculture can help in sensitizing youth while enthusing nutritious production and consumption. Academia can lead the skilling and training for this. We must raise nutrition literacy, develop a cadre of youth that can fill rural skill gaps and develop entrepreneurs aspiring to transform villages that are nutrition deserts into nutrition hubs.
Finally, ranking villages on a nutrition index could track progress such domains as sustainable farming, cultivation of nutritious crops, farm-gate processing, efficient transport and storage and nutritious consumption. This would spur panchayats to accelerate movement towards a resilient food system.
Prioritizing the promotion of local agriculture and food value-chain development, suitably re-configuring agriculture for nutrition security and building partnerships that are inclusive of rural stakeholders need high-level attention to improve India’s nutrition statistics. Collective action is imperative to achieve self-reliance in nutrition.
S. Vijay Kumar, distinguished fellow, TERI, contributed to this article.
(Meena Sehgal and Manish Anand are, respectively, member of the Food and Land Use coalition and senior fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute or TERI)
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