FirstQuestion: FOOD PRODUCTION, NUTRITIONAL SECURITY AND ADVANCED...

FirstQuestion: FOOD PRODUCTION, NUTRITIONAL SECURITY AND ADVANCED...: FOOD PRODUCTION, NUTRITIONAL SECURITY AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION During one of my field trips I met a man, might be in ...

FOOD PRODUCTION, NUTRITIONAL SECURITY AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION

FOOD PRODUCTION, NUTRITIONAL SECURITY AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION

During one of my field trips I met a man, might be in his late 50s. He invited me home, offered me tea and discussed about the story of his grandfather.

I was exploring the scope of processing and distribution of pulses in this village when I met Mr. Ram Lochan. He was actively listening to our discussion on malnutrition and the role of changing agricultural practices. After summarizing my points and emphasizing the use of modern technology to solve nutrition related health issues when I was about to leave the place Mr. Ram Locahn approached me. I could not reject his polite invitation and went to his house at the other end of the village. On our way to his home I enquired about the reason behind the invitation.

“To tell you a story”- was his succinct reply.

“A story”- I exclaimed!

“Yes, a story. A story about agriculture!”

After a pause he asked; ‘you are a researcher, am I correct?”

“Yes”

“So, I believe you like stories…”

“Yes, but…”

“Don’t worry. I will tell you stories on rising cereal prices, lack of availability of vegetables and stories narrating the cause behind agricultural shift….”

“That’s interesting!”

We arrived at his house. It was old but a colossal building. I thought this man must be extremely rich.

“Please have a seat. What would you like to have, some biscuits or snacks, with tea?”

“Thank you! I would like to have some water, please.”

Then he started narrating his story;

“When I was a kid I used to enjoy the discussions in my family. My parents, uncles and grandparents used to have meetings regularly in the morning and in the afternoon. The main subject of the discussion was related to agriculture. Many often I have noticed my youngest uncle leaving the meeting in rage. He always had arguments with my grandfather and would leave the meeting half way. On one such occasion he had asked my grandfather to grow sugarcane instead of rice. But my grandfather was rigid, as usual, to reject this proposal. Rather my grandfather asked him to take a small part of the land and do sugarcane cultivation. Grandfather argued that we need to ensure the production of rice and pulses to fulfill our demand. After meeting the demand we can use the rest of the land for sugarcane cultivation. But my uncle claimed that sugarcane can yield a lot of money and we can use the money to buy not only rice and dal but also a lot of other essential stuffs. The discussion turned bitter, my uncle left home. My grandmother and my father had to intervene to pacify the situation. They tried to negotiate with my grandfather and my uncle as well. Finally the family decided that half of the land will be used for sugarcane cultivation, three fourth of the rest half will be used for rice and the remaining will be used for pulses. Later that year, the sugarcane yield was good and we earned a lot of money. However, the rice produced that season could not meet the family demand. We were out of our stock towards the eighth month of the year. Unfortunately very few of the farmers from our village had enough stock to supply rice to us. We were ready to pay double the market price to procure rice. But the issue was to find a farmer who is willing to sale the right kind of rice to us. And similar was the situation with pulses as well.  For my uncle this was a very trivial issue, rather a tradeoff in order to become financially rich. However, both my father and my grandmother learned a different lesson and decided to cause no further violation of the norms set by my grandfather.”

“As a kid I could never realize the essence of this incidence. However, at this juncture of my life I could not resist my temptation to praise the prudence of my grandfather. When I think of my grandfather’s decisions I realize the importance of me, US & YOU. My grandfather has always argued, when you are involved in the activity of production, first think of your basic needs as an individual, then your family needs and finally the need of the local market. Business with the local market will help you to minimise your transaction cost and effort. Thus the producers should work with the objective of satisfying their basic needs first and then consider the needs of the market. However, in a market based economy when means of exchange has become more important than the products or the services, the whole balance has got disturbed. People try to maximize their monetary profit. This propels them to emphasise more on the needs of the market than on their own basic requirements. As a result of which they get indulged in the production of cash crops and purchase of staple foods. This increases the demand for staple food. In addition they believe that others will continue staple food cultivation which can help them purchase the staple food at a lower price. But unfortunately this idea is not so exceptional, all the producers think alike and none of them produces food crops.  This leads to the scarcity of food.  But cash crops provide a lot of money. So to satiate the hunger we import foods. These foods though are able to fill our stomachs but could not cater to the needs of body in terms of nutrition. So, now we struggle with the issue of nutritional security.”

“So, Mr. Mohanty, with a properly managed distribution system we can manage our hunger, but what about the nutritional requirements. Are we really prepared to address the challenges of nutritional security?”

“My grandfather rightly advised; first think of yourself and your family, what is essential for your survival. Then assess whether you are resourceful enough to contribute to the needs of your village and community. Finally, if you have surplus then think of exchange and earning profit. But if you focus on others demand, you have to neglect your needs and face the problem of scarcity. So the order should be I, WE & YOU not THEY, I & YOU.”

After a long silence Mr. Ram Lochan looked at me and asked, “ I hope you found your story!”

I greeted him and left the village. But I started thinking, “isn’t it a case of tragedy of commons due to social dilemma and social trap?”

But one question which left me disturbed, “how can we use advanced technological solutions to solve the problem of food security as well as nutritional security?”

 

MIGRATION, 4As OF EDUCATION  AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION

Few days ago I got an opportunity to interact with a group of migrant laborers at IRMA. Many of them were from Odisha. These people had migrated to Gujarat in search of job.  They used to arrive at IRMA early in the morning, around 7:45, and leave the campus in the afternoon, at around 5:45 pm. They were accompanied by their family consisting of husband, wife and the kids. Sometimes if the kid was very young then an elderly person used to come with the kid. After arrival the laborers used to move to respective sites for work and the kids used to move around the campus and play. At around 12 “o” clock all of them used to gather for their lunch.

A couple of days later I observed students at IRMA had started an open school for these migrant kids. During afternoon, once their classes got over, these students taught the kids. I started attending few of these sessions. I observed the teaching process. It was very difficult for both the parties to communicate. But gradually I found these kids developing the skill to imitate the languages, Hindi and English, taught to them. They wished “hello” anyone coming to their class and said “bye bye” to people leaving their class. They sang songs, “ macchli jal ki rani hei, jeevan uska pani hei” without understanding the meaning of the words. But they very well understood the symbols and thus enjoyed the process. However, I could notice the difficulty of using English or Hindi as a medium of instruction.  Looking at the difficulty of few of their teachers I just thought, “What could be the possible alternatives to teach these kids? Which language could be used effectively to teach these kids?”  And, for a while I started thinking, “is it justified to teach them in English or Hindi?” Because making them learn Hindi or English may lead to demise of their native language skills since many of them did not get the scope to read, write or speak with their friends and relatives back home and got no scope to use the native language. Alternatively how could an instructor, belonging to a different language group, teach them effectively and easily? The communication was really difficult during the process of teaching as because the teachers, a few of them though were from Odisha, didn’t understand the language being spoken by these people.

 In an attempt to explore more about this issue I started talking to some of the parents. The parents were enthusiastic about their kids’ education because of two reasons. First, it kept the kids occupied during the afternoon so the parents could do their work without any tension. Second, the kids got the scope to learn. However, the major concern they raised was that of the continuation of education. With their meager income, they thought, it was impossible to afford higher education or even primary education for their kids. Besides, the migratory life had complicated the accessibility of education for their kids.

Now these queries raised two issues before me. One, what should be the course content for these kids? If we continue with the present content, which is similar to that of the formal education content, then we may not be able to motivate the parents to continue the education of these kids. Because the formal education would prepare them for some job as an engineer, or a doctor or a bureaucrat, etc. For which further education is required and the poor laborer family may not be able to afford this education.

Hence, is it possible to design some curriculum which can help them overcome not only the issue of illiteracy but also address the issue of livelihood and affordability?

Furthermore, these kids moved with their parents from one place to other. I got the information that some 4-5 laborers had already left the job at IRMA construction site during last one month period and gone elsewhere. Besides, I found a family who used to work at Rajkot had shifted to Anand few months back and had joined the IRMA construction work. Now this leads to a different set of problem. Formal education in the existing system needs to be a continuous process. But a nomadic life could not help these kids get the education on a continuous basis.

So, is it possible to develop a system to track the movement of these kids and organise resources at   these places to ensure continuation of their education?

To summarise I raise three issues,

1.      What should be the course content for these kids? (The Course Curriculum  in terms of language, content )

2.      How should these kids be taught? (What should be the pedagogy; activities to teach these kids?)

3.      How can these kids be tracked and continuation of education is ensured at places they migrate? (Where should be taught? How to track these kids and continue the education from where they have left?)

… But my first question is, “Can advanced technological solutions help us overcome the barriers of acceptability, availability, affordability and awareness?”