India is among the world’s top food producers; yet, it faces a chronic undernourishment crisis with 16% of its population malnourished compared to the global average of 8%. This series traces the structural causes of hunger and food insecurity in inequalities in power. It examines the solutions the state is offering to ask what their true meaning is for people and the climate.
In this series, a three-part investigation focuses on the policy of rice fortification in India’s public-sector food programmes. Does such a policy really help those with anaemia and malnutrition? Who benefits from it instead?
As part of the Modi government’s new strategy to combat anaemia and malnutrition, two years ago, in October 2021, it began supplying new kind of rice, chemically fortified with iron, vitamin B12 and folic acid, to the poor here, including small farmers such as Kamal Kant Gope in Jharkhand’s Panajea village.
States Lacked Capacity to Test Fortified Rice, But Had to Give it to the Poor https://thewire.in/rights/fortified-rice-kernel-experiment-testing
In Jharkhand, 56,000 quintals fortified rice rations were distributed while the state lacked a fully equipped laboratory to confirm the quality and the levels o f vitamins and iron.
The second part of the series on the mandatory rice fortification in India’s public-sector food programmes, identifies the gaps in quality control.
Who Did the Union Govt's Food Policy Help? India’s Anaemic, or Vitamin Businesses and Big NGOs? https://thewire.in/business/who-did-the-union-govts-food-policy-help-indias-anaemic-or-vitamin-businesses-and-big-ngos
Those who lobbied for a diktat of rice fortification in India’s public schemes, a contested technical fix for anaemia, took little accountability for its safety or quality.
The third and final story in the series on the policy of rice fortification in India’s public-sector food programme, examines the lack of evidence and scientific consensus when India adopted compulsory food fortification.
21/11/2023