What's Up With Your Health?

What is happening in India?

In the context of COVID-19, one of the most important innovations rolled out by the National Nutrition Mission in India to complement the door-step delivery of food rations, was the promotion of nutri-gardens or “poshan vatikas”. For example, in Lakshadweep, each Anganwadi worker adopted about 15 houses each and with the help of experts, identified plant species that could be grown based on the soil conditions, such as papaya, banana, and green leafy vegetables. Whereas in Mizoram, Anganwadi workers maintained ‘Kan Wadi Huan’ (nutri-gardens) at their local Anganwadi centres where they harvested and distributed bananas, maize, beans, squash, pumpkin, strawberries, mustard leaves, spinach, and lettuce. Similar to Mizoram, Gujarat also cultivated nutri-gardens at Anganwadi centres, where green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, brinjals, bananas, green chillies and drumstick plants were cultivated across the state.

As we look at the evidence from India, trials conducted by the MS Swaminathan Research foundation documented significant increase in consumption of fruits and vegetables.⁵ Most importantly, a systemic review of evidence from South Asia shows that while such trials have shown an increase in dietary diversity, very few have been able to demonstrate the impact of nutri-gardens on the anthropometric outcomes of the population.¹ Thus, more research is warranted to monitor the long-term impact of nutri-gardens on the nutritional outcomes of children and women in high burden districts. These findings can be particularly significant in addressing the micro-nutrient deficiencies of our population and providing a sustainable solution in our fight against ‘Kuposhan’ /’Malnutrition’.

How can we promote the uptake of nutri-gardens?

With contextual evidence on the impact that nutri-gardens may have on improving the health and nutritional outcomes of women and children, there is need to invest in a “social learning network” for promotion and uptake of nutri-gardens. Some solutions suggested in this regard could include:

• Urban Audience
  • Developing a citizen’s portal on crowdsourcing of knowledge (e.g., how to set up a nutri-garden), resources (e.g., seed suppliers in major cities) and best practices (e.g., how to grow daily vegetables with minimum resources) on nutri-gardens and dietary diversity.
  • Additionally, the portal can feature recommendations by nutritionists on healthy dietary practices and recipes of dishes that can be cooked using food produce grown in a kitchen/nutri-garden, thus poised to provide an e-platform for driving a social learning network for nutrition promotion.
  • This should be coupled with a mass media campaign to drive up the demand for fresh vegetables, fruits and livestock produce, which is anchored in the need for balanced and healthy eating plates that are reflective of India’s food diversity and culture.

• Rural Audience
  • Policy advocacy for promotion of nutri-gardens in Anganwadi centers (Child care centers) that can provide access to fresh fruits, vegetables and food forestry for improved nutritional outcomes of women and children.
  • Exploring an opportunity to develop an IT based feedback loop to provide the government with an accountability tool to monitor the progress made on setting up of nutri-gardens by community health workers with participation from the community.