My Research: A Small Strand in MSSRF’s Vast Web
There is so much going on here. Next door, a fungi researcher from Biotechnology cultivates strains of lichen used to monitor ecosystem health. Across the building, Information, Education, and Communications is redefining the purpose of a “library” from places for book-borrowing to spaces of support, knowledge dissemination, and community gatherings. Downstairs, Coastal Systems is distributing a GPS and ocean data app for fishermen, and across the garden, Ecotechnology is thinking ten, fifteen years ahead of ways to secure farms in the face of climate change.
And these projects are only from four coworkers that I’ve spoken to. Under the extensive vision of Prof. MS Swaminathan, the five main programs at MSSRF weave a web of different overlapping and complementing projects and initiatives that reach across India to field offices, and eventually to villages hundreds of miles away.
So, where do I, a high school wannabe hunger fighter slash journalist, stand in this intricate, impressive, and dynamic web?
Because of MSSRF’s incredible flexibility and resources, I’ve been given the freedom to design my own research project in any topic of food security. I actually couldn’t believe it at first — I have a chance to dive into anything I’m truly interested in and passionate about, and the extensive knowledge of experts in all types of fields a door knock away? A literal dream, and an opportunity that I may not have again for a long, long time — if ever!
Before diving into possible directions I could take my research, I knew one thing for certain. In the same eagerness that I sought to explore human stories for my school newspaper, I wished to learn about the lives of Indian women farmers around my age. Their situations and stories, told by their own voices, can inform interventions and policies that address new and continuing issues in their lives.
After hours of reading MSSRF’s food security publications and articles, I’ve also been thinking a lot about nutrition, which is the next phase, according to Prof. Swaminathan, in ensuring food security in India. As the Green Revolution has ensured an adequate quantity of food produced by farmers, our attention must now be turned to the quality of food.
To connect these two interests, and after a LOT of reading, talking, and thinking, I’ve determined the objective of my research: to identify the barriers faced by young mothers in consuming adequate, diverse diets. With its population of 1.3 billion people, India has one of the highest rates of malnutrition in the world — 38% of children under five years are stunted (which means they don’t reach their full growth potential, an indicator of chronic undernutrition), and 50% of Indian women are anaemic. Good nutrition is a cornerstone of quality of life, and is also intertwined with economic and social mobility, women’s empowerment, and improved livelihoods.
It’s important to note that nutrition involves more than just quality diets, such as health and environmental sanitation, but I decided to focus my research on food, using dietary diversity and the consumption of diverse food groups as proxy for quality diets.
I chose mothers with children less than two years old because I’m interested in their stories, and also because they are a crucial demographic in determining the diets of members of their household, especially their children. A child’s first 1,000 days is the most critical period in their lives for nutrition, and their mother is their primary caregiver (not to mention bearer of the womb for 9 months).
Through surveys, focus group discussions, case studies, and observations in Tentulipadar, a village in the Koraput district of Odisha, I’ll analyze three levels of barriers: those within the food supply chain, the food environment, and in individual behaviors and social norms. Exploring these barriers can produce a snapshot of food availability, accessibility, nutrition knowledge, and behaviors in Tentulipadar. They can map how mothers interact with the larger food, environmental, and cultural systems at play and point towards how these all, ultimately, affect the quality of young mother’s diets.
In the wider web of MSSRF’s work, I hope that my research will be helpful to MSSRF’s ongoing mission towards better nutrition. In basing my research on the voices of women farmers, future diet initiatives and interventions can be designed or refined informed by their words.
Every time I sit in the canteen and talk with my coworkers, I love hearing about their projects, passions, and experiences in the field. Now, I’ll be able to share my own.
