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Interaction between nutrition and agriculture in India

S.G. Srikantia. National Institute of Nutrition Jayalakshmipuram, Mysore. India

Abstract
Production of food grains
Upgrading nutrient quality
Meeting nutritional needs
References

Abstract

Nutrition is an important environmental factor that influences health, and adequate food intake is a prerequisite for good nutrition. Agricultural production is of crucial importance in ensuring that food needs are met. Countries with a high rate of population growth need to develop suitable agricultural strategies to increase food production. In addition to this quantitative aspect, there has to be concern for the qualitative dimension of food production. The mixed bag of produce should be able to satisfy "recommended allowances" of all nutrients needed for optimal nutrition.

Food production in India has increased substantially over the years. All food grains have, however, not increased uniformly. Production of cereals and millets has increased substantially but not that of pulses and oilseeds. In a country where the inclusion of pulses is important in increasing dietary protein content and for improving protein quality, this is a disturbing trend. At current levels of production, the recommendation of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMP) (1968) that a balanced diet should contain 70 grams of pulse, cannot be met. The revised balanced diet (1980) contains only 50 grams and this level can barely be met. Unless special efforts are made to increase pulse production, there is a real risk that recommended dietary allowances of pulses cannot be met.

Another qualitative aspect of food production has been India's efforts to identify, evolve, and propagate food-grain varieties with more-than-average nutrient content. Protein and lysine have received special attention. High protein/high lysine lines of cereals and millets have been identified, but have often been found not to breed true, for reasons not fully understood. Improving protein content and quality of staples was conceived as a method of improving the quality of diets, at a time when habitual Indian diets were considered to be protein-deficient. This concept has changed and the primary bottleneck is now believed to be energy. Cereal-pulse based diets have been found to be capable of meeting protein needs, when consumed in amounts that satisfy energy needs. The relevance of efforts to improve protein quality, therefore, needs re-evaluation.

At the national level, food production appears to be adequate to meet demands, provided there is equitable distribution. In actual practice many households do not get enough food because of poor purchasing power Among families whose daily per capita income is below Rs 3/-, over one half consumes an energy-deficient diet. A proportion of such households do not get enough protein either - a finding that explains the widespread childhood energy-protein ma/nutrition. The impressive buffer stocks of food grains held in recent years is a reflection of this low consumption. They would disappear should the purchasing capacity improve. Current levels of production under such circumstances would not be enough to build reserves.

Due to increased agricultural production, food-grain import has, normally, all but stopped. What has been achieved in the Indian agricultural situation has been the prevention of serious famines, which occurred in earlier years. But it does not appear to have made much impact on the widespread chronic malnutrition. To be able to reduce chronic malnutrition, increase in food production has to be of a magnitude larger than that seen at present. This alone will not suffice. Food grains have to be within the price range of the great majority. Also, national nutrition policy and national agricultural policy will have to be more compatible.

Nutrition is an important environmental factor that influences health and well-being. Consumption of diets adequate both in quantity and quality is a prerequisite for the maintenance of good nutritional status. Agricultural production that determines food availability is, therefore, an important determinant of food consumption, though not a critical one if food imports can be assured. Self-sufficiency in food production is of particular importance for developing countries, not only because they tend to have high rates of population growth, but also because such countries have malnutrition as a public health problem. The quantitative aspects of food production are undoubtedly of primary concern, but it cannot be forgotten that the qualitative aspects are extremely important, if optimal nutrition is to be provided. The interphase between agriculture and nutrition, therefore, acquires considerable practical importance. Some aspects of this interphase as they relate to India are briefly presented here.

Production of food grains

Food-grain production in India has risen considerably over the last three decades. The increase has indeed been spectacular - from around 50 million tons in 1951 to over 130 million tons in 1980 representing as it does a 2.5-fold rise. The true significance of this becomes apparent when it is viewed in terms of per capita availability at the national level. This has jumped from about 350 grams a day to around 470 grams, after allowances are made for food losses and reservation of seeds (table 1). The increase in production in the earlier part of the period was of a magnitude greater than the increase in population, and has subsequently kept pace with the population rise. The increased production has been achieved largely through an increase in the yield of grain per hectare, rather than from an increased cultivated area. The increase in production has been the result of widespread cultivation of new high-yielding varieties coupled with a package of agricultural inputs that permit the genetic expression of their high yield potential. As a result, from cereals, millets, and pulses alone (excluding oilseeds, sugar, roots, and tubers) dietary energy availability has gone up from 1,180 calories per capita daily, to 1,650 calories.

TABLE 1. Per Capita Food-grain Availability^a in India: 1951-1980

1. Excluding oilseeds, sugar, roots, tubers, milk, and milk products
   Sources: Bulletin of Food Statistics 1975, 1979; Agricultural Situation in India, 1980

The increase in the production of different types of food grains has, however, not been uniform. While that of wheat has registered a sixfold increase from 6.4 million tons in 1951 to over 35 million tons in 1980, those of rice and millets have been less marked (table 2). This is particularly so since 1961, the increase in rice production between then and 1979 being around 60 per cent and that of millets only 30 per cent. Although the nutrient composition of rice, wheat, and millets does differ in several respects, and though the digestibilities of these staples are different, it is unlikely that this would have demonstrable nutritional significance. What, however, is of considerable nutritional importance is the failure of pulse production to increase between 1961 and the present. Following a 50 per cent increase between 1951 and 1961, there has been virtually no change over the last two decades. As a consequence, the per capita availability of pulses which stood at 70 grams per day in 1961, has now dropped sharply to about 45 grams (table 3). With an increase in cereal-millet availability, the pulse-cereal ratio has shown a marked distortion, falling from about 20 per cent to half that figure at present (table 4).

TABLE 2. Production of Rice, Wheat, and Millets in India: 1951-1979 (million tons)

1. Bajra, barley, jowar, maize, ragi, and small millets.
   Source: Agricultural Situation in India, 1980.

TABLE 3. Per Capita Availability of pulses in India: 1951-1980

1. pulses are important sources of protein, lysine, riboflavin, and trace metals in the Indian diet
   Source: Agricultural Situation in India 1980.

TABLE 4. Per Capita Availability of Cereals and pulses Ratio 1951-1980

The habitual Indian diet is predominantly vegetable-based, and foods of animal origin do not usually find a place because of their high cost. The inclusion of pulses in cereal-millet-based diets is critical not only in increasing the protein content, but also in improving the nutritional quality of the protein. pulses are also rich sources of several trace metals, whose essentiality to human beings is no longer in doubt. The present situation has, therefore, to be viewed with considerable concern. The balanced diet recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 1968 contained 70 grams of pulses for an adult subject (Gopalan and Narasinga Rao 1968). A 25 per cent higher production level is needed to support availability at the individual level since allowances have to be made for losses. wastage, and seed purposes. At no time during the last three decades could the production level permit the inclusion of 70 grams of pulses daily. This figure was perhaps unnecessarily high, and, using linear programming, the least-cost balanced diet recommended recently (ICMR 1981) provides for only 40 grams of pulses per day. To be able to achieve this, the production level has to be over 50 grams a day - a figure that just about matches current production (table 5). This is indeed a disturbing situation, and proper corrective measures have to be introduced urgently if the situation is not to become worse. The danger is real, in the face of the very low per capita availability of foods of animal origin, including milk and its products.

TABLE 5. Per Capita Production Level^a of Calories and Pulses: g/day

1. Production level needed to meet recommended dietary allowances (RDA): cereals: 490 (1981 RDA), pulses: 53 (1981 RDA); 87 (1968 RDA).