In a remote village in rural Rajasthan 10 local women own and operate a factory that delivers 30 metric tons of a flour enriched with vitamins and minerals to 6,000 children under the age of three and nearly 3,000 pregnant or lactating women on a daily basis.
Despite being India’s largest state Rajasthan is home to a high percentage of children that are undernourished and are not consuming the necessary vitamins and minerals they need to thrive. Poverty often leads to malnourishment at a young age and this increases the risk of impaired growth, susceptibility to serious illness and early death.
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Indian government set up the Banswara Factory as part of a model for producing supplementary food. Referred to as “take home rations,” the food is distributed through government-supported community centres. The approach centres on developing small-scale production facilities run by a cohort of women entrepreneurs who would be both owners and workers in the factories.
The factory complements the Indian government’s program to provide additional supplementary food fortified with vitamins and minerals for free to pregnant and lactating mothers and children under the age of three. The women work to produce a product called Raj Nutrimix - a mix of flours, wheat and sugar fortified with essential micronutrients which are also palatable to children. The State Government of Rajasthan, through their social welfare program, acts as both a buyer and distributor of the product, which is then handed out through community centres.
The State Government’s role goes beyond the buying and distributing of food and includes educating mothers on how to appropriately cook and consume the product. However due to poor education and distribution strategies, the product remains foreign to many women in the rural areas and is not reaching as many consumers as anticipated.
GAIN’s Director of Nutrition for Women and Children, Marti van Liere, said that with the appropriate investment, training and support, illiterate and semi-literate women can successfully produce a quality controlled, nutritious product in a locally managed facility.
“Connecting with an existing public delivery system allows for quick, easy access to target consumers, but promotion is still necessary to increase consumption of the new product,” she added.
GAIN has produced three case studies in collaboration with the Global Business School Network (GBSN), and the Tuck Global Consultancy Program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth about our work in improving nutrition for the most vulnerable groups. The case studies examine lessons learned from various programmatic interventions to improve nutrition for young families in Côte d’Ivoire, and in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan in India.
These case studies and other lessons learned by GAIN on improving nutrition for women and children will be presented at a free symposium in London on 26 February entitled “Making a difference in the first 1000 days to improve the lives of children and women”. Find out more and register now.
GAIN supports the promotion of optimal feeding practices for infants and young children, including exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a child’s life, and continued breastfeeding, alongside safe, diverse and nutritious complementary foods, until age two and beyond following World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by GAIN sponsor of the Guardian Global Development Professional Network.
