Although food prices have dropped from last year’s record highs, the fallout of the global financial crisis is driving an increasing number of children to hunger, says Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation.
For the first time, more than one billion people are chronically hungry, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. In India, a severe drought this year further pushed food prices up. Even before the drought, there was a crisis in the agriculture sector, which accounts for 52 per cent of India’s employment with declining state subsidies (Planning Commission 2008). A huge majority of farmers have small land holdings and have little access to credit, the NGO working on child rights said in a statement here on Friday.
Severe weather patterns such as the recent floods in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are also destroying crops and forcing families to sell assets.
As poor families lose resources, a healthy diet for children quickly becomes out of reach. Food typically consumes 50-70 per cent of poor families’ income, compared to 5-10 per cent for families in developed nations.
One out of three malnourished children lives in India. When children, especially those under two, do not get nutrients, they may suffer permanent damage to physical and intellectual growth.
Malnutrition is also the underlying cause of two million child deaths each year. The lost potential of the next generation undermines economic development in the countries that need it most, says the statement.
Save the Children calls for a comprehensive strategy to address hunger in India. It calls on the government to honour its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty, malnutrition and child mortality.
