Food and Nutrition Security

Nutrition security will be a cross-cutting theme in the Programme and all activities will be examined from a nutrition lens. This will include (i) cultivating traditional nutrition-dense food crops;(ii) introduction of labour savings food processing technologies to promote use of traditional crops; (iii) focus on nutrition-dense interventions such as kitchen gardens, backyard poultry and goat rearing; and (iv) convergence with government programmes to address gaps in the areas of food availability, health, water and sanitation. The programme will conduct training of children in residential schools and SHG members on malnutrition, locally available nutritious foods, preparation of nutritious food with local materials, sanitation and alcohol abuse

In addition, the programme will support the following activities:

Crop diversification and nutrition sensitive agriculture

Demonstrations through Farmers' Field Schools

Integrating nutrition security in to all components

Crop Diversification and Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture

Demonstrations Through Farmer Field Schools

Farmer field schools (FFS) would be conducted by organising 15 to 20 farmers FFS groups. The CSPs will be the anchors of the FFS. One or two FFSs in each village will be organised and supported under the programme. In collaboration with OUAT the programme will identify better agronomic and management practices, better varieties through selection and trials for millets, pulses, beans, oilseeds and tubers cultivated by PVTGs. The focus of these efforts will be to enhance food and nutrition security of the PVTGs. In all some 7,000 demonstrations will be carried out during the programme period. Limited availability of draft power, especially for summer ploughing and during peak sowing season hampers farming operations. Cultivation is often done manually even in flat, settled farming areas. Lack of availability of quality seeds is another constraint in enhancing crop productivity. These constraints could be alleviated by providing power tillers and other farm equipment for renting out to farmers. The programme will also promote seed banks for existing crops as well as new crops being promoted.

Food and Nutrition Security

The programme will promote: (i) food and nutrition security and productivity enhancement by identifying local varieties that add value to nutritional basket and also identify new crops suitable locally, develop seed banks, train farmers and CRPs, undertake demonstrations of more productive farming systems, provide improved farm tools, including power tillers, establish vegetable and fruit tree nurseries and introduce new and innovative farming techniques such as system of root intensification (SRI); (ii)diversification of the faming system of PVTGs to include fruits and vegetables as well as traditional cereals, such as sorghum or millets, or bio-fortified crops that have been bred for higher nutrient values; (iii) provision of technical advice and education on processing and storage and on health and nutrition (including food safety, home preservation and preparation); and (iv) milling and hulling activities as one of their IGA specifically with regard to traditional crops that are being neglected to facilitate use of fortification to combat malnutrition and also value-addition.