A Cornell University project led by an Indian-American professor has secured a $13.4 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to combat malnutrition in India. The grant goes to the Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative, TCi, and targets the diet of the rural poor, particularly women and children.
Prabhu Pingali, professor of applied economics and management and director of TCi, says the project has three core missions: to collect data and evidence that informs policy reform related to diet quality; to redesign agricultural projects with a focus on nutrition; and to help build capacity to make reforms possible, a press release from Cornell said.
The four-year grant comes on the heels of the launch Dec. 1 of the Technical Assistance and Research for Indian Nutrition and Agriculture (TARINA), a consortium linking Cornell with university and nongovernmental organization partners including the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Emory University as well as NGOs like BAIF Research Development Foundation, CARE, and Tata Trusts.
The grant also plans to establish a Center of Excellence in Delhi, partly as a data and information hub, as well as a source of technical expertise on nutrition sensitive food systems.
Pingali said the dilemma of Indian malnutrition isn’t about the amount of food grown but rather the diversity of available foods. The consortium hopes to influence the design of ongoing and future agricultural projects and policies with an eye on increasing the rural poor’s year-round access to an affordable food system that contains all food groups.
“The push toward staple grains has inadvertently crowded out micronutrient-rich food,” says Pingali. “To enact meaningful reform it’s not just enough just to say, ‘let’s produce a more diverse diet.’ You need a behavioral change.”
That change centers on the role of women particularly in rural India where most homestead farms grow staple grains on two to four acres of land with labor largely supplied by women.
In Indian culture it’s typical for men to dine first, leaving less desirable food to the women in a custom that reinforces malnourishment, according to Pingali.
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