Soumya Swaminathan Calls for Expanding India’s Nutritional Focus Beyond Cereals

Quick Summary

• Soumya Swaminathan, chairperson of M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and former Chief Scientist at WHO, highlighted India’s need to shift beyond cereal-centric diets to enhance food and nutritional security.
• She stated that poor dietary diversity is a important issue, with 40% of Indians unable to afford a healthy diet according to FAO data.
• dr. Swaminathan called for capacity building in value addition for agricultural products, noting India often exports raw materials while other countries profit from processing them.
• The workshop “Societal Connect: Empowering Agri-Enterprises – Bridging Science, Sustainability and society” was organized by CSIR-NIIST in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.
• Concerns were raised over anti-science movements and the importance of scientific literacy among the population.
• C. Anandharamakrishnan (CSIR-NIIST Director) emphasized boosting food exports through innovation, entrepreneurship, and value addition to improve global competitiveness while ensuring nutritional security domestically.
• Technical sessions featured experts from NIFTEM Thanjavur, Spices Research Institute, Coconut Development Board, NABARD, IIT Kharagpur discussing agricultural innovation technologies and enterprise development.

Indian Opinion Analysis

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan’s emphasis on addressing poor dietary diversity reflects an urgent challenge for India’s nutrition landscape amidst growing food insecurity concerns highlighted by FAO estimates-40% Indians are unable to afford nutritious diets as defined globally or nationally (NIN data). By advocating for non-cereal-based nutritional sources alongside increasing capacity in agri-product value addition processes domestically (rather than exporting raw materials), this approach promises multifaceted benefits such sustained enterprise ecosystems-or bridging Science-Sustainability domain pragmatic synergy gaps geostr…

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