Food security is no longer an issue with the majority of the population in our country. However, the same is not true with ‘nutrition security’ (that is, access by all people at all times to the adequate utilization and absorption of nutrients in food, in order to be able to live a healthy and active life).
Since 2016, GDS has been participating in a major national initiative, Technical Assistance and Research for Indian Nutrition and Agriculture (TARINA) that focuses on attaining the nutritional outcomes through the agricultural pathway. Being implemented in the field at Maharajganj (Eastern UP) location, the key strategies of the project comprise improving crop diversification (through boosting cultivation of pulses, oilseeds and vegetables); sensitizing communities (with focus on women)on nutrition using BCC tools; reducing women’s drudgery in agriculture so as to enable them give more time for their own and their children’s healthcare; enhancing productivity of livestock sector; promotion of nutrition gardens; propagating new, nutrition promoting crops; and, undertaking advocacy, at the state and national levels, towards integrating a ‘nutritional lens’ in the mainstream agriculture development and food security programmes. Over the last two years, the interventions under the project now extend to over 2500 households from 30 villages. A unique feature of the project has been the introduction into the project area of nutrient-enriched rich crop varieties- especially, the orange flesh sweet potato (OFSP) and the Zinc fortified wheat varieties.