Food and Nutritional Security Initiatives in Bihar (India): An Overview

Abstract

The agricultural pathways to improve the rural year-round access to affordable, diverse, and high-quality foods needs to include all individuals, enterprises, and institutions that influence the supply, demand, consumption, and absorption of food. The interconnected components of a food system lies in diversification of agricultural production system ensuring a level playing field for the production and marketing of nutritious non-staples, such as fresh fruits, legumes, and livestock products and creating a more robust and diversified food system. Bihar had the highest percentage of stunted children among all the states in India. Forty-two percent of children under the age of five in Bihar were stunted, a significantly higher proportion compared to the all-India average of 34.7% and IFS can bring the required diet diversity of household. The Ankuran programme aims to nudge children to eat more nutritious food by creating nutrition and hygiene awareness among students, by setting up poshan vatikas, in schools. Promotion of advanced crop production practices, bio-fortification, Poshan Vatikas, livestock to sustainably improve household availability of nutrition, conserving natural resources and redirecting agricultural policy away from "staple-grain fundamentalism" toward a much broader food systems focus, considering the need to build better connections between agriculture and nutrition.