Food crisis ravages India's poorest children
Sarah Crowe, UNICEF
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GURAVAL VILLAGE, Madhya Pradesh, India (June 9, 2008) — In the pre-monsoon heat, the Akushwah family gathered under a Neem tree on their most important mission since a boy was born to the family a year ago.
As the group waited for an auto rickshaw at the side of the main road from Bhopal to Delhi, they talked excitedly about how they had saved for a full year to fill their large steel bucket with a feast of chapattis, lentil dahl and channa, or chick peas.
If not for the huge food price increases that have hit India's poorest families the hardest, it would have taken them half that time. Like more than 50 percent of all Indians, the Akushwahs live on around $1 a day. But that didn't stop the family from taking a taxi to a bright blue temple, where they offered a feast to the Gods in thanks for their baby boy.
Even in a crisis, centuries-old traditions and beliefs die hard.
Effects of high food prices
"After three girls, we are so thankful for this boy. We don't buy medicines and we had to cut back on our food because things are so expensive," said the father, Badarinath Akushwa. "But we know if we feed the Gods, that will be our medicine."
© UNICEF video
Anxious mothers bring their malnourished children to the nutritional rehabilitation center in Shivpuri, one of 100 the state of Madhya Pradesh.
Despite a robust economy with nine percent annual growth in recent years, inflation and the food crisis in India now threaten to erode many of the gains made here.
In order to address both the complex situation causing high rates of child malnutrition in India, the retail giant IKEA is supporting UNICEF India with an $80 million package of health, nutrition, and water and sanitation programs over the next five years.
In the state of Madhya Pradesh, which has the highest child mortality and child malnutrition rates in the country, government supplementary programs are under threat. Community workers have complained that they can longer give severely malnourished children a healthy, balanced diet out of the two Rupees per day that they receive from government for each child.
UNICEF sets up nutrition centers
Even at the best of times, nearly half the children under the age of three in Madhya Pradesh are undernourished. Two years ago, in response to a severe drought, UNICEF helped the government set up a 100 nutrition rehabilitation centers throughout the state. The monsoon rains have continued to fail, and now with the food crisis that failure has created a "perfect storm," affecting the most marginalized children—especially those from excluded castes and tribes.
At the Kalyani nutrition center in Shivpuri, anxious mothers take turns weighing their babies, who are barely big enough to tip the scales. Whereas malnourished children used to be brought to the center by government transport, now a steady stream of mothers are bringing in their babies on their own.
"Before, we used to have to go and find those babies and bring them here. Now the mothers are motivated to come, because their children are suffering more," said health worker Dinesh Khanna.
Families cope with stark choices
For Sunita Adivasi's family, wheat stocks are running out. With the price of other staples such as rice having almost doubled in six months, she is left to make stark choices.
"Only my husband is able to work and we're seven in the family, so we cannot feed and clothe our children properly," she said. "We're really very worried about things. We don't know how we are going to cope."
Sunita's son is two years old but cannot walk. At the community center, he and his sisters relish their midday meal. It's all they'll get, and they're not alone. This year, 72 percent of children in the village of Guraval are malnourished, compared to 60 percent last year.
"While there is no change in the families' income, the food prices have gone up incredibly," UNICEF Nutrition Officer for Madhya Pradesh Vandana Agurwal said, adding that in some villages the prevalence of child malnutrition is as high as 80 percent.
