1. Feed the Future
Reducing Malnutrition in the country

2. The Problem-Studies and Facts
• The main contributing factors for under-nutrition are household food
insecurity and insufficient knowledge of proper care and infant
feeding practices.
• Recent analyses reaffirm evidence that when women are involved in
household decisions and have control over earnings, their children
are better nourished.
• Malnutrition in children is more prevalent amongst rural children,
scheduled castes and tribes, and amongst children with illiterate
mothers.
• Malnutrition amongst women is one of the prime causes for low
birth weight babies and poor growth. Low birth weight is a
significant contributor to infant mortality.
• In order to attain a fully healthy, well-nourished, and productive
population, it is important to improve access to nutritious and
diverse foods

3. The Present schemes-Failures
• Mid-day Meals:
 Requirement of infrastructure like kitchen and storage to each and every school in the
country.
 Responsibility of daily goods like vegetables left to schools , making it to difficult to
maintain the system with in budget due to market conditions
 Total responsibility of running the system on school staff causes 1.Extra burden
2.means of leakage and enrolment of non-existing students
 Failure in hygiene standards due to poor storage and unscrupulous cooks
 Weak checks and untrained supervisors
• Anganwadi
 Lack of motivation in anganwadis
 Leakage of funds at the front row workers
 Beneficiaries unaware of their entitlements
 Parents do not consider their children malnutritioned as there is no acute problem of
hunger
The challenge for all these programmes and schemes is how to increase efficiency,
impact and coverage.

4. The Solution
• Formation of Women Co-operatives
to increase the access of food to the
poor and rural areas
• Women groups will be trained to
cultivate variety of vegetables and
fruits locally on small scale
• Educated on the importance and
various aspects of nutrition
• Making women part in eliminating
malnutrition
Centralised
Mid-day meals
• Arrangement of a special body for
MDM headed at the district level
• Establishment of Mid day meal
centers for a group of schools
• Reducing the need of infrastructure
• Making the system relatively more
self-sustainable
• Increased ease of monitoring
• Improved efficiency and standards
Women
Co-operative Groups

5. Women Co-operative Groups
In rural and urban slum
areas women from low-
income groups will be
formed into Co-
operative groups
These Co-operatives
will be provided small
land in their areas to
cultivate different types
of vegetables and fruits
on a small scale
In urban slums and areas
in which land is not
available, container(pot)
cultivation is encouraged
These co-operatives will
be cultivating them on a
scale just higher than
the home kitchens
The product would be
distributed among
themselves and excess
can be marketed.
The Excess can be
marketed through the Co-
operative in the same
area at prescribed prices
making it available to
other poor families.
Women Co-operative Groups

6. Merits
Food Access
• Fresh and cheap
local food will be
available to most
of the poor
families
• Would be helpful
to increase the
diversity of food
Empowerment
• Would result in
increase in income
of the women in
rural areas
• Will lead to social
and economical
empowerment of
women
Training
• These women can
be trained on
cooking nutritious
meals with the
available resources
• Can be imparted
knowledge about
the child care and
nutritional
requirement

7. Women Co-operative Groups
• As the cultivation is for earning their own nutritious food and income, the
system can be highly effective and efficient.
• As these women are also the mothers , educating them on the importance of
nutrition and various nutritional and child care practices, would effectively
eliminate malnutrition in all those families.
• These Co-operatives can also be made to work as the replacement of
anganwadis as they will be more motivated.
• This target group would be the focus for convergence of other services like
family welfare, education, childcare, safe drinking water, sanitation and shelter
to improve the welfare and quality of life of the family and the community.
• The provisions from government would only include a small area of land and
saplings and in urban areas cheap containers(pots) and nutrients for plants.
• The system is self-reliant and self-sustainable with in very low budgets
achieving simultaneously nutritious diverse food access, awareness of mothers
and women ultimately leading to reduced nutrition and women empowerment
for greater good of society.

8. Consolidated Mid-day meals
A certain number of schools are grouped together on the basis of either the number
of students( about 1000-2000) or 10-15 schools in a locality( Major-Panchayat
level or Mandal level)
Food for the group of schools will be cooked at one of the largest school in the
group which is termed as Centralized Mid-Day Meal Centre.
The meals will be distributed to all the schools through suitable means of
transportation. The schools should be grouped keeping the transportation facilities
in mind
This will work as a part of a special body headed at the district level. Also, each
centre will be monitored under the local panchayat and local revenue department
Facilities will be provided to make the centre self-sustainable.
A standard set of recepies to made nutritious meals from the available resources.

9. Consolidated Mid-day meals
Main aim of the Centralized Mid-Meal Centre is to make the system effective by
making it self-sustain and independent from market fluctuations
Mid-Day Meal Centre will be provided with facilities to cook for the group which
include:
 Large hygiene kitchen
 Storage facilities for imperishable goods like rice, pulses etc, procured from the
FCI
 Sufficient land is allotted to the centre where daily goods like vegetables, fruits
etc., can be cultivated by the local group of women
 Poultry is maintained at the District Head quarters to provide poultry products
 Transportation facilities to distribute food to each school
 These kitchens and transportation can be set up in urban areas with the help of
NGOs and other large local donators
Merits:
 Quality and hygiene of food can be maintained
 Infrastructure burden will be less (as only one kitchen for 10-15 schools)
 Leakages can be eliminated by efficient monitoring

10. Pregnants and infants
 The pregnants can register in the local health care centers or panchayats.
 Nutritional supplements especially iron supplements and milk powder pockets
for pregnants and mothers of infants can be supplied through these mid day meal
centers in the nearest primary school.
 Supplements for children of age 2-5 will also be provided in the same schools.
 This would increase the bond between the children and the school.
 The pregnants can be provided vegetables especially leafy vegetables through the
Women Co-operatives to help eradicate anemia
Monitoring:
 For the success of all the mentioned schemes, effective monitoring is the key
factor.
 Beneficiaries should be made aware of their entitlements and complaint
registration system should be easily accessible to them
 External agents can be involved to effectively monitor these systems
 Local youth bodies, mahila samits and NGOs’ help can be taken to receive feed
back from all the beneficiaries and amend the policies as per the results

11. References
• AN EVALUATION OF MID DAY MEAL SCHEME Satish Y. Deodhar*, Sweta
Mahandiratta, K.V. Ramani, and Dileep Mavalankar And Sandip Ghosh, and Vincent
Braganza
• Economic growth, hunger and malnutrition Income growth and changes in food
consumption
• Under-nutrition - a challenge for India-Report by UNICEF
• India- Under nutritioned children report by World Bank
• Helping India Combat Persistently High Rates of Malnutrition- World Bank
• Development Of Women And Children In Rural Areas (DWCRA)
• Malnutrition- Articles For India