Agriculture is fundamental to achieving nutrition goals; it provides the food, energy, and nutrients essential for human health and well-being. This paper has examined crop diversity and dietary diversity in six villages using the ICRISAT Village Level Studies (VLS) data from the Telangana and Maharashtra states of India. The study has used the data of cultivating households for constructing the crop diversity index while dietary diversity data is from the special purpose nutritional surveys conducted by ICRISAT in the six villages. The study has revealed that the cropping pattern is not uniform across the six study villages with dominance of mono cropping in Telangana villages and of mixed cropping in Maharashtra villages. The analysis has indicated a positive and significant correlation between crop diversity and household dietary diversity at the bivariate level. In multiple linear regression model, controlling for the other covariates, crop diversity has not shown a significant association with household dietary diversity. However, other covariates have shown strong association with dietary diversity. The regression results have revealed that households which cultivated minimum one food crop in a single cropping year have a significant and positive relationship with dietary diversity. From the study it can be inferred that crop diversity alone does not affect the household dietary diversity in the semi-arid tropics. Enhancing the evidence base and future research, especially in the fragile environment of semi-arid tropics, is highly recommended.

This paper has presented evidence on the role of pulses in enhancing the nutritional status of the rural communities in the semi-arid tropics (SAT) of India. The paper has used primary data from the ICRISAT VLS nutrition surveys (8 villages from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra) and the longitudinal panel micro-level data (for 6 villages of Telangana and Maharashtra) from 2009 to 2014. The study has revealed that there has been a decline in the area and production of pulses in the SAT villages of India, even though at the macro-level, pulses production has shown an increase. Pulses do contribute to the diversity in diets but the adequacy of protein from the pulses in the diet has not been analyzed in this paper. The regression analysis has indicated the importance and role of pulses in improving the nutritional status of the rural communities. The paper has concluded that there has to be a concerted policy and program action to reintroduce pulses into the cropping pattern in SAT-India and improve the consumption of pulses to the level that has a positive impact on human nutrition. Empowering women along the entire pulse value chain has been observed as one approach to enhance pulse productivity and consumption. Nutrition education, awareness generation and nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions for pulses are the ways forward to reduce malnutrition in India.