Food fortification offers a cost-effective complementary strategy for addressing the problem of under-nutrition. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - Business Line
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IAS Parliament 3 years
KEY POINTS
· The government of India has planned to take accelerated steps to distribute fortified rice through the social safety net schemes of Targeted Public Distribution System, PM Poshan and ICDS in all parts of the country.
· Given that rice is the staple cereal for 65 per cent of Indians, fortifying rice with micronutrients and supplying it through safety net channels, which cover 800 million people, provides a promising opportunity for plugging the nutritional gaps.
· The success of the Costa Rican rice fortification programme has been mainly ascribed to a centralised rice industry, leveraging of the existing distribution channels, collaborative efforts of private and public sectors and ensuring consumer acceptability, among others.
· One example is the World Food Programme’s collaboration with the Odisha Government to distribute fortified rice across 1,449 schools in Gajapati district through MDM scheme in 2012.
· Gajapati’s schoolchildren experienced a reduction of 20 percentage points in the prevalence of anaemia as opposed to 14 percentage points in Rayagada, indicating a reduction of six percentage points that can be attributed to intake of fortified rice.
· Further, collaborations with knowledge and implementation partners would help leverage their expertise in implementation and measuring the impacts of the programme.
