Change in their eating habits deprives
women of vital nutrients.
A cup of coffee sweetened by jaggery relaxes Muniyammma. With renewed
energy she goes back to the field to help transport the just-harvested
bundles of ragi from Kaggalipura to the threshing mills.
Some 40km away, in Bangalore, Muniyamma’s sister Jyothi sips a cup of
coffee bought at Rs 3 from a roadside vendor. Sweetened with white
sugar, the coffee allows her to take a break from carrying stones on a
construction site.
Because jaggery has been replaced with refined sugar, Jyothi has
unknowingly deprived herself of its rich nutrients. While a kilogram of
jaggery has 28 grams of mineral salts — including those of magnesium
and calcium — white refined sugar has only 0.3 grams of it per
kilogram. This is what happens when women migrate from rural areas to
cities. Their diet changes and with it eating patterns, which leads to
hunger and malnutrition.
When Sunitha — a resident of Saluhunse on Kanakapura Road — is not
attending the local government school, pulls out juicy radishes from
the fields — where her parents work — and sells them on the highway.
Between sales, she and her friends munch on locally-grown groundnuts or
corn.
In Parvayanapalya, 65-year-old Kaalamma dries home-grown chillies in
the mild winter sun. Her grandchildren have just had a meal of ragi
mudde. Kaalamma has just chased away a broker, who wants her to sell
her land to him.
“All of us in this village have been advised to vacate our land. Why
doesn’t the government understand that we do not want money? For
today’s meal, we used ragi, onions, greens and even some of the spices
that have been grown right here on our land. If we move away from the
fields, how can we earn enough to buy all these ingredients?” she asks.
Kaalamma’s granddaughter, a graduate who lives with her parents in
Bangalore, agrees: “Many people have moved away from our village to
cities, in search of better jobs. Some of them are doing quite well.
But most of them are in menial jobs, cowering under their masters’
gaze, eating leftovers”.
According to UNICEF, India has higher levels of malnourished children
than Sub-Saharan Africa, despite having more funds and better
infrastructure to tackle the problem.
“The city may give migrants enough to eat, but not enough to feed their
hunger,” says Vanaja Ramprasad, director of Green Foundation. Following
a hunger mapping survey in 23 villages in Kanakapura taluk, researchers
found that the total earnings in these areas are barely sufficient to
cover food expenses.
Despite a number of organisations working in the agricultural sector to
improve conditions for farmers, 40 per cent of women agricultural
labourers migrate to urban areas every year. For most of them, their
food patterns, eating habits and mindsets are altered forever.
“If agriculture fails, the nation fails,” says V Prakash, Director of
Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore. “Why do we need
water-parks and resorts in prime agricultural land? When poor farmers
sell off their land to realtors, they actually sell off their
livelihood.”
One answer to food security is to link informal food processing centres
to organised food processing centres with the involvement of the
farmer, grower and the producer. “We seldom tend to feel that the
farmer is also an entrepreneur,” he says.
http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Feb262008/panorama2008022554161.asp
