Centre for the Study of Social Systems
School of Social Sciences
CSSS Colloquium
RICHA KUMAR
(Associate Professor, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Delhi)
Will be presenting a paper on
Untangling Under-Nutrition: Agriculture, Dietary Diversity and the
Hollowing out of Rural India
Date & Time: September 25, 2018 (Tuesday), 3.30 pm
Venue: CSSS Committee Room (No: 13), SSS-II
Abstract: This paper argues that tackling the problem of under-nutrition in rural India, requires first, situating the problem in the longer term historical context of agrarian change and second, understanding the pathways through which diets and access to food have been shaped over time. Whereas most attention to the problem of under-nutrition has focused on maternal and child health, sanitation, feeding practices and the issue of access or entitlements, we seek to show how a shift to intensive monoculture agriculture, green revolution style, in conjunction with the commodification of agrarian resources, and the shaping of aspirations surrounding food consumption, has contributed to a nutritional crisis in rural India. Using oral history interviews, focus group discussions, commodity chain mapping, and a seasonal diet survey in the plains of western Awadh in north India, the study challenges the dominant narrative of a past of scarcity and hunger that was redeemed by the green revolution. It shows, instead, that hunger was shaped by inequity and not an absolute shortage of food grains. The paper further argues that untangling under-nutrition requires going beyond a medicalised approach and towards a fundamental re-assessment of the relationships between the production and consumption of food. Unless these relationships are transformed to bring back dietary diversity and access to a variety of nutritious foods, tackling under-nutrition will continue to remain beyond our reach.
Bio: Richa Kumar is Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research and teaching interests are in the Sociology of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition, Science and Technology Studies, and Rural and Agrarian Policy. Her current research is on the impact of monoculture farming on farm systems, the environment and human health. Her book, "Rethinking Revolutions: Soyabean, Choupals and the Changing Countryside in Central India" was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. She is a recipient of the New India Fellowship and is a member of the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS). She completed her Ph.D. from the Science, Technology and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA.
