Good nutritional status is an important indicator of development. Despite an apparent surplus of food grains at the national level, and several efforts being made through favourable public policies, malnutrition persists. India is challenged with 43.5% children under the age of 5 being underweight (the highest rate in the World) and 50% of pregnant women being anemic. This is more true especially with the poor and vulnerable groups. This highlights that national food security alone is not sufficient to attain to nutrition security. Nutrition security is dependent on several inter-related factors such as food production, food access, poverty, gender, access to health and sanitation, and cultural beliefs and practices. The articles in this issue highlight some of these factors. This issue of LEISA India includes a number of initiatives that help improve family nutrition, for example kitchen gardens, enhancing production of millets and pulses, which are rich in nutrients.
6 Small farms, big values
Ranjan K Panda and Ajit Kumar Panda
9 Consuming more pulses Can it be a solution to fight malnutrition?
Atul Dogra, Ashutosh Sarker, Aden Aw Hassan,Pooja Sah and Aqeel Hassan Rizvi
13 Nutrition gardens Women lead the way
J Krishnan
15 The rich diversity of forest foods
Bharat Mansata
17 Homestead gardens for food security
Suman Sahai
18 Interview: Luis Ginocchio
“Gastronomy is a search for tasty food, a search for healthy, local, nutritious food”
Teobaldo Pinzás
21 Getting the most nutritional value out of the farm
Raj Uprety and Rajendra Uprety
23 Nutrition from innovation
Roshan Mehta, Roshan Pudasaini and Jacob Zucker
26 Homestead food production A strategy for reducing micronutrient malnutrition and poverty in South Asia
Aminuzzaman Talukder
29 From biodiversity to dietary diversity
Zayaan Khan
30 Processed foods: A bane on health
B N Nandish
31 Reshaping destinies
Sandeep K
35 Towards stronger family farms Recommendations from the International Year of Family Farming
Janneke Bruil