Community Managed Anganwadi: Sustainable Solution to Malnutrition

Salidana village is perched on a mountain with hutments of Korku tribes dotting the uneven and contoured slopes. Khalwa block of Khandwa district, in which Salidana village falls, is still counted as one of the blocks of Madhya Pradesh with high concentration of malnourished children. The gravity of malnutrition of Salidana is compounded by each passing year due to the lackadaisical functioning of government service delivery systems, widespread livelihood insecurity and heavy distress migration.

Villagers of Salidana are indeed aware of the benefits of having an Anganwadi which could provide nutrition support to village children. But, the spirited efforts of villagers yielded no result as their requests in the past only fell on the deaf ears of the indifferent administration. People of Salidana countered the callousness of administration with innovation and persistence and that too, in an impressive way.

The village, entirely inhabited by Korku tribe, decided to start an informal Anganwadi on its own in the courtyard of a house in 2006. Incidentally, the etymological meaning of Anganwadi is ‘a garden in the courtyard’. Pramilla, an VIII standard pass-out, volunteered to take care of the children and the villagers chipped in with food, small amounts of cash, and contribution of labour. Even after the commencement of informal anganwadi in the village, the community continued to pressurise the local panchayat to recognise the anganwadi as a formal institution and provide resources for nutritional and education support of village children. In the year 2009, the anganwadi was given the recognition of sub-centre and in July 2012, Pramila was appointed as the anganwadi worker. These successes were only the beginning.

One would readily agree that Salidana has one of the best Anganwadis of the state. As a general trend, children normally shy away from going to Anganwadis but in Salidana children just would not leave the anganwadi even after 3 pm. Mr. Prakash, of Spandan Samaj Seva Samiti which helped the community to start the Anganwadi, says that children will stay in anganwadi only if there is a playful environment. “Anganwadi is an efficient mechanism for addressing malnutrition. But these institutions no longer provide enjoyable environment to children where learning and nutrition support are available for them”, Mr. Prakash said.

Salidana anganwadi now has a stock of toys, learning materials and clothes. All the children who attend the Anganwadi get adequate supply of learning materials and two pairs of clothes which were made available by Goonj, a national level network which collects dresses from cities across India and distributes them in impoverished rural areas. The anganwadi also has sufficient supply of essential medicines for treating common sores and bruises which otherwise go untreated in the villages.

At exactly 1 pm, the attendant of the anganwadi comes trudging along with a head-load of vegetable curry and pancakes from the main anganwadi which is nearly two kilometres away. Since Salidana village has fewer than the required number of children for an anganwadi, lunch for the children is prepared at the main Anganwadi and it is brought to Salidana by the attendant. Once the attendant brings the food supply for the children, Pramila goes out to the small veranda followed by the toddlers in a disciplined row. Children stretch out their hands and Pramila washes their hands with soap. The toddlers walk back into the class and sit cross-legged on the rolled out carpets. Pramila occupies one end of the carpet watching over the distribution of lunch to the children. Once the children begin the lunch, Pramila begins narrating the story of a wild crow in Korku dialect. Pramila believes storytelling during lunch time has a lot of benefits. “Children will take food without persuasion and they will not hurry through the lunch if they hear a story” Pramila says.

Only 12 children attended the Anganwadi on a rainy day in August. Even though there are around 50 children in Salidana, all the others migrated with their parents to places as far as Aurangabad in Maharashtra, around 700 km away from Khandwa. Korku tribals migrate frequently for several months at a stretch in search of wage labour. “The migrated tribals will return after the cropping season and the anganwadi will have full attendance of 40-45”, said Pramilla.

Spandan’s workers closely monitor the growth parameters of the children of the village especially those attending the Anganwadi. Children who require nutrition support are put on a rigorous care regimen so that they do not become malnourished. “Anganwadis fail because of the indifference of Anganwadi worker which often happens because of the lack of interest and participation of the community in the management of Anganwadi. If the community starts asserting its rights, Anganwadis will become functional and malnutrition could be defeated”, Mr. Prakash said.

Saju MK, Caritas India, Madhya Pradesh

Cultural Determinants of Malnutrition

The pervasive malnutrition in the aboriginal heartlands in Madhya Pradesh is indeed intriguing. Malnutrition among the Korku, an originally hunter-gatherer tribe, has as many cultural complexities as socio-economic determinants. Korkus are concentrated in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra especially in the Satpura ranges of Madhya Pradesh. Khalwa block of Khandwa district arguably has the highest population of Korkus for any block in Madhya Pradesh. The high concentration of the reclusive Korku tribe in this mountaneous region occured as a result of the waves of invasions and racial push.

Korku community’s knowledge on malnutrition is surprising. On one hand they had the realisation that malnutrition was of a recent origin while on the other, they had developed nomenclature for different manifestations of malnutrition. As it happens in the case of every hunting-gathering tribe, Korku’s diet consisted of a rich variety of nutritious herbs and meat and fish as protein sources. As the times progressed, meat and fish content in their diet disappeared gradually. This was also because of the ever-diminishing forest cover, decline of wildlife and imposition of stringent anti-hunting laws. To make the scenario even worse, local food grains like Kotho, small millets etc were replaced by wheat and soybean – the exalted crops of green revolution. The result was disquieting – chronic malnutrition.
 

Since Korku could not unravel the causation of malnutrition, he presumed and guessed. And that too wildly, in certain cases.  Obviously, these imaginations helped the least in giving solution to malnutrition. Strangely, Korku came to the conclusion that pregnant and lactating women were the sources of malnutrition. For a common Korku, malnutrition is the result of an evil eye.

The deeper one goes into analysing the causes of malnutrition among the Korku, the more perplexing the reality becomes. Korkus still believe that if a pregnant woman happens to pass under a rope swing, the child for whom the rope swing is made will be hit by malnutrition, regardless of the place where s/he was when the pregnant woman walked under the rope swing. Even if the child was playing in the nearby field, s/he cannot remain unscathed by the evil eye of the foetus in the womb. If such unfortunate incident occurs, umpteen covert and overt rituals will have to be done for warding off misfortunes.

Feeding the colostrum, the immunity building first milk, is still a taboo among the Korku. Mothers will squeeze the colostrum in to ash in the hem of their saree and dispose it of. Of course some Korku women have become aware of the necessity of colostrums feeding and its benefits for the child but a good number of women continue to deprive their children of immunity of colostrums, and that too in innocence and ignorance.

Prakash, a seasoned worker in the Korku belt, informs that Korkus have specific terms to denote different manifestations of malnutrition. Sukhi Meli (a shrivelling disease), Shiti Meli (skinny hand and feet), Hagraya Meli (severe diarrhoea), Ulti Meli (oedema with fever), Lal Meli (reddish tongue and mouth) and Jali Meli (wasting when ribs become prominent) are some of the terms that Korkus use for denoting various degrees and manifestations of malnutrition. Mr. Prakash highlights the crude irony: all these words are in Korku dialect, which incidentally happens to feature in the UNESCO’s list of dying dialects.

Saju MK, Caritas India, Madhya Pradesh

Profitability of Marginal Farming - Key to Food Security

Prosperity of peasant society in rural India greatly depends on the land productivity and systems that augment profitability of agriculture. The never-overstepped phase in the development of a country is strengthening agriculture system and subsequent betterment of a farm-dependent workforce.

Developing the agriculture sector in India is characteristically challenging due to the prevalent land distribution pattern. A cursory look at the statistics on landholding pattern will reveal the oddities plaguing the agriculture sector. Over 79 per cent of cultivators belong to the category of marginal and small operators and cultivate less than one third of the cultivable land. Astonishingly, Kerala has the lowest national average size of operational holdings of 0.33 hectare as against the agriculturally prosperous Punjab, which has a healthy average of 3.61 hectare. Nevertheless, Kerala’s agriculture accomplishments are no less creditable.

Considering the fact that marginal farming and fragmented landholdings will continue to prevail, efforts should be made to invent means to maximize income from marginal holdings. When over 70 per cent of population is directly dependent on agriculture and very little skill base, which is industry-suited, is formed in this group the key to development of the country is making agriculture profitable for even a marginal landholding agriculturist.  History testifies that the first stepping-stone to prosperity is accomplishing profitability of agriculture and increasing the asset-base for farm-dependent people. This target in Indian context is formidably huge in view of the sheer number of agriculture-dependent workforce.

Kerala emerges as a strong case in the context of success of farmers with marginal holding. Of course, the state is gifted with generous rains, clement weather and bountifully fertile land. However, credit should not be taken away from farmers who exploited the favourable conditions to the hilt and translated innovating agricultural practices into a tradition. While exploiting the efficiently knit drift and lift irrigation systems, farmers resorted to intensive farming with a stress on mixed and multi cropping, cash crops and highly rewarding spice cultivation. Thus households cultivating as little as an acre managed to raise sufficient incomes from their marginal holding.

Admittedly, as against the case of Kerala, North Indian states grapple with furious weather capriciousness. Notwithstanding this challenge, positive efforts in the right direction can help marginal farmers extricate themselves from poverty. Making smallholdings profitable is a necessity because of three factors. First, there is no immediate possibility of an encompassing land reform to consolidate small holdings into large holdings even while adequately protecting the interests of small farmers; second, majority of rural labour force depends on agriculture as their livelihood and they cannot be shifted to any other sector and finally, agriculture practiced in rural areas is largely unprofitable and would continue to be so unless very heavy investment is made to correct the nagging problems of rural farm sector.

The first step to this objective is increasing availability of water for agriculture. Nearly eighty per cent of India’s farmers practice dry farming and hence are at the mercy of rain gods. Drift irrigation, as a dependable system does not exist in any considerable degree in most parts of India. The option that remains is groundwater dependent irrigation. In this context, there is an urgent need to arouse the sensitivities of rural people towards the issue of water harvesting and recharging of groundwater table. Rural communities should be motivated and encouraged to undertake micro-watershed projects. Though governments patronize watershed related works in rural areas, villagers have not been able to associate themselves emotionally with these initiatives. Anandwan of revered Baba Amte demonstrates how watershed activities of an enthusiastic community can change the face of a region. The present Anandwan – the forest of bliss for lepers - was nothing but a hopeless barren land when Amte reached there. Anandvan presents before us a replicable model of topographic planning and watershed work.

Secondly, money drain of marginal farmers needs to be checked by mobilising agriculture inputs locally. Green revolution had coerced farmers to be dependent on foreign technologies and inputs that they would not mobilize locally for eternity. Though, marginal farmers did not quite benefit from green revolution they continue to adhere to the costly agricultural practices even now. Farmers need to be weaned away from the technology dependence – an offshoot of green revolution. Organic farming emerges as a plausible option as it addresses nearly all needs of poor marginal farmers. The ecologically advantageous on-farm vermi-composting and organic pesticide can reduce farming expenses to a great extent.

Thirdly, farming practices of marginal farmers need structural changes. Agriculture pattern of Kerala yet again reinforces the fact that maximization of agricultural income from marginal and smallholdings is possible only by promoting multi-cropping, mixed cropping and horticulture. The present farming pattern of marginal farmers is rigid and offers no variety. Besides, farmers are generally averse to crop introduction and rotation thanks to ignorance and resource crunch. Horticulture coupled with agro-forestry can give some protection to farmers from the wildly fluctuating fortunes of agriculture.

Fourthly, in view of the fragmented and unorganized agriculture sector, the existing support systems and institutional back up need to be reinvigorated and reoriented to benefit small farmers. Agriculture extension activities need to be strengthened and intensified. Governments should initiate more concrete efforts to developing agro-marketing possibilities, strengthening agriculture cooperatives, expanding rural infrastructure, implementing more effective farmer-friendly credit and subsidy regime and insulating farm sector from the onslaught of globalisation.

The growth of agriculture over the last few decades suggests that agricultural growth per se will not lead to better conditions for the rural workforce. Growth of rural incomes for marginal farmers, in the years to come, would depend on introducing higher value crops, mixed farming and horticulture practices.

By: Saju MK, Caritas India

This work was published earlier in India Currents

School for Food? A Musahar Story

The abysmal literacy rate of Musahar community does not entirely speak about its lowest position in the development index. The community has barely 9 per cent literacy rate, which is one of the lowest for any community in India. The community gets its name from the traditional occupation of catching rats for their livelihood and for food. ‘Moos’ means rat in the commonly spoken Bhojpuri dialect of Musahar community. Thus the meaning of Musahar is a community that traps rats and feeds on them. Though the community has discontinued its traditional occupation of catching rats, history still haunts and hurts the community badly. In the North Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, Musahar community falls at the bottom of the caste pyramid structure.

95 per cent of the educated members of Musahar community are no older than 15 years. This implies that the school-going children almost entirely constitute the literates of the community. If we rush to conclude that Musahar community has suddenly become serious about educating its children, we will make a mistake. Paradoxically, the mid-day-meal that is given in the school, rather than the school education itself, has more attraction in Musahar dominated villages. And the food provision in school persuades parents to send their children to school.

I visited two Musahar villages in Poornia district of Bihar to know how the community approaches education as a social good. Mohan Rishi of Jhuiyan village says, “Our children get food from the school only infrequently. Even when they actually get, the food is not of good quality”. The response of Mohan Rishi is important because this was the first answer that he gave to a question on the benefits of school education. He, like all his community members, takes the surname of ‘Rishi’ which means sage.

The answers given by the school-going children to the same question on the importance of education were real eye-openers. Sita, 12 year-old girl attending Class V, said in one breath, “In school we get education and food”. Incidentally Sita attends tuition classes in her village at the monthly fee of Rs. 150. When asked why she attends tuition classes when she goes regularly to school, she complained about the poor quality of teaching and irregularity of classes. Perception of school as a food source does not augur well for school education. Though one of the stated purposes of mid-day meal programme is providing nutritional support to school going children, this was not the exclusive purpose of schooling as it is widely perceived.

Musahar parents inform that children, especially those in the secondary schools, do not generally stay in schools after the lunch break. In certain cases, class teachers call it a day immediately after lunch. Vijay a 14 year old Vth standard student says his class teacher ends classes anytime he wishes, at times even before lunch.

Musahar children spend a good amount of leisure time on the raised wooden planks which is a standard feature of all Musahar houses.

Though the schools have not made any significant contribution to providing quality education to Musahar students, it has indeed given some food support to school-going children. Can be it taken as an excusing relief or debate on education improvement measures, is an issue that needs to be resolved.

Saju MK,

Caritas India

Roof Farming: An Unconventional Malnutrition Remedy

There is a common denominator across the malnutrition cases of Madhya Pradesh: most cases of malnutrition come from landless or marginal farming families. When you ask them why they do not grow vegetables, all that they can offer you in answer is a shrug of helplessness. “Where will we grow vegetables when we have no land?” asks Kanti Bai of Pachpeepal village of Rehli block in Sagar. Kanti Bai is a daily wager working on farms and construction sites.

There are thousands of Kanti Bais across the length and breadth of Madhya Pradesh who cannot grow vegetables because they do not have land. Even if they have small holdings of land, vegetable cultivation is not possible in the absence of irrigation facility.

For landless households, roof farming is an option for bridging the gap of nutrition supply. This pattern of farming pattern requires no land; it does not need an irrigation system either. There are instances where communities follow this; but they do not utilise the full potential of this system.

Vegetables like pumpkin, bottle gourd, luffa (gilki), runner beans (sem ballar), indigenous breeds of small tomatoes etc are good options for roof farming. The seeds of these vegetables could be planted along the walls in a 2-feet pit filled with mixture of cow dung and soil. Households that now practice landless farming do not report about lack of irrigation water. They irrigate the plant in an innovative way. The plant is grown at the same place where they normally wash the utensils. However, they make sure that water loaded with detergent is not reaching to the roots of the plant.

Households can grow small kitchen garden, as small as 2 square feet, and still get dependable supply of vegetables from this garden throughout the year. Other vegetables like okra (bhindi), egg plant (brinjal), chilli and coriander also could be grown in such small gardens.

The best way to address the malnutrition problems of landless households is identifying and promoting food producing methods that suit their conditions. These may not be sufficient to meet the entire nutritional needs of households but they indeed contribute to the solution. 

Bottle gourd grown on a roof

By: Saju MK, Caritas India

Nutrition Security and Livelihood Security: Two Sides of a Coin

Another day another village, but the malnutrition issue remains the same. Only its manifestation changes – that too, in a very small way. I visited another village in the lush green plains of Ujjain district for helping my partner organisation to do a situation analysis. The only exception to the pristinely flat landscape is the mole-hill of Vinayaga village. The sleepy village bears great resemblance with other north Indian villages – as you enter the clustered habitation of the village, you see signs of luxury in a very few houses. As you walk deeper into the village, you will see poverty glaring at you from windows and doors.  Vinayaga has approximately 150 houses but 10-15 are decent housings with concrete slab houses with brick walls that are plastered. The others are thatched houses cobbled up with twigs, straws, mud, wheat chaff and nearly any other material that will stop water and reptiles from getting into the house.

One will not miss the most striking feature of the village. Rich houses in a cluster are located just at the entrance of the village whereas the clutter of asymmetrical houses of the poor families stretches out from the main residential area into the farmland and hilly areas. This poor locality, inhabited by lower castes, has a different name, appearance and different set of problems.

While interacting with some women who were rushing for farm labour I got to know that their life is as simple as it can ever be in a village. Get up in the morning, rush to farms for a paltry wage labour, return home and sleep - only to get up in the next morning to repeat the previous day’s schedule. Household chores don’t even feature in their discussion because it has become so integral part of their life.

Women plainly replied with a dejected shrug ‘we were born like this’ when they were asked why they were poor. And when they were asked why their children looked pale and lean, the answer was even more surprising – ‘children run around whole day, how they will gain weight?’ Villagers may not know the nomenclature of malnutrition but they can spot its symptoms and consequences and name them too. For them the first consideration is to feed children with quantity, whereas the quality of food is taken for granted. Families are happy if they can feed their children three times a day. But this is a sheer luxury for many a household.

“When there is sufficient wage labour, we have good food” Jyothi a middle-aged labourer says. The good food for her consists of pancakes and lentil or potato curry. Her farm produce is barely sufficient for her family of five. Price of food grain and pulses has soared but the wage labour rate has remained stagnant for five years. When wage labour availability is good, quality on the food platter also is good. ‘Paisa nahin hain toh, khayenge kya’ (if there is no money, what will we eat?) said Jyothi while rushing to field and struggling to keep the face veil in tact. In any case people don’t eat currency bills or coins but people’s dialect of ‘money for eating’ has evolved this way. And this change is at the core of malnutrition issue, which people often fail to see.

Seldom there is a reference to livelihood security during the discussion on malnutrition. The degree of livelihood insecurity and prevalence of malnutrition have a directly proportional relationship. To clarify this more simply, the poorer the community is; the higher the prevalence of malnutrition is. Nearly all interventions on malnutrition of voluntary agencies and government are patchwork type interventions which address the immediate symptoms and not the deep-seated roots.

Sustainable solution to malnutrition is possible only when livelihoods are secured. The quick fix malnutrition solutions are successful in the short run but in the long run, they will create dependency within the affected population. If such dependency ever happens to set in, it will be like making a healthy person shut his mouth and feeding vitamin pills. Sustainable solution to malnutrition is possible only when livelihoods of the affected community are safeguarded and local food systems are improved and diversified.

Saju MK, Caritas India

Cash Crops Invade Food Crop Space

Today I visited two interior villages of Ujjain district and found how food insecurity has systematically clenched its grip on North Indian villages. These two villages, Sanwarkhedi and Padmakhedi villages are microcosm of typical North Indian villages which are always under the shadow of malnutrition and food insecurity.

The landscape of both villages is lush green in these early days of Kharif crop or the monsoon crop. Unfortunately this crop greenery does not contribute to the local food security at all! All that you will see on the farms is soybean and soybean which people can only sell and not eat. Villagers have their own logic of trading soybean for wheat and gaining some additional rupee as profit in the trade off. Rightly so, not many economists can beat them in their argument. Their reason is simple – one acre soybean cultivation fetches them at least Rs. 9,000 whereas wheat will give an income of just Rs. 6000. If they sell the soybean and buy wheat from the market, they still will have saving. Because the on-the-farm selling price of soybean is normally Rs. 2300 per 100kg whereas the best quality wheat could be bought from market for Rs. 1300 per 100 kg. Ballu, a farmer of Padmakhedi with 21 acre of land sees no reason for cultivation of wheat for the purpose of selling. “Unless it is for your household consumption, don’t grow wheat” Ballu says. Fortunately, he understands the fact that home-grown food is better than chemically grown food grain that is available in the market.

Three crops dominate farming system of these two villages – soybean, wheat and gram. They practically cultivate no other, not even vegetables which can flourish during monsoon crops. All villagers cultivate wheat as their second crop and use it for domestic consumption. Villagers inform that the scene was pretty different 10 years back when soybean had not entered the local farms. They used to grow maize, sorghum, and small millets – all these have disappeared from the farms and food platter of villagers. Their traditional diet was rich with diversity of vegetables and cereals. But the story of that famed food self-sufficiency is slipping into oblivion now. Veteran farmers like Devprasad Gujjar remember how they used to eat less but still remained healthy in the olden days. Nowadays, villagers generally eat more in quantity but still do not have the vigour which half the quantity of food used to give some ten years back.

It will be too premature to conclude that people do not understand this transition from food security to food insecurity. They actually know and that is what is more bewildering. Ramabai Nayak, a rickety 70 year old woman, captures what nearly all villagers when she says “if there is money in the pocket, you can have food in the plate”.

I scanned both village surroundings for fruit trees and all that I could see was 4 mango trees and 2 guava trees. I cannot claim these villages have only as many fruit trees in real number; they may have more but definitely not even one tenth of what they had ten years back. Farmers say these trees especially mango trees and sugar apple (Sitaphal) which were as ubiquitous in North Indian countryside as Neem tree (Azadirachta indica) do not fetch any money. There lies the reason why these trees disappeared so quickly. Even more unfortunate is the gradual disappearance of cultivation of common vegetables like tomato, pumpkin, bottle gourd, colocasia and the others which can give nutritional support for at least six months in the rainy season and post rainy season. Now villagers buy all vegetables from weekly market which gets its vegetable supplies from places as far as Maharashtra – a central Indian state 500km away!

Thus the siren song of cash crops chokes the feeble cries for household nutrition sufficiency. The real tragedy is villagers despite knowing the reality find themselves are unable to restart the safer agriculture of yesteryears. Thus goes the invasion of cash crops..


Saju MK, Caritas India.